Eat the rich and bow to Joffy - The Square Ball 18/5/22

WHAT'S THAT NOISE?

Written by: Steven York

It wasn’t until the Spurs game in February that we finally heard booing at Elland Road this season. While the fanbase had been entirely enamoured with Marcelo Bielsa and the exhilarating, if volatile, football that came with him, shipping twenty goals in five games was bound to rub some of that shine away. It isn’t like the stands had never seen anger or resentment before. In fact most of my adult life has been spent angry or resentful at someone managing or running the club. But it felt like a watershed moment when the crowd finally turned its frustration towards Bielsa.

Fast forward a few unhappy months, and we hit another watershed moment. While the response to life after Bielsa has been mixed, it wasn’t until Leeds were losing against Brighton in a game that desperately needed a different result that we finally heard vocal dissent towards the board.

‘Sack the board’ rang around the stadium as pointed figures in the Kop gestured straight towards the directors’ box. Variations on this theme were heard throughout a second half that made several promises but struggled to deliver on any. I couldn’t see him, but I’m told that Andrea Radrizzani was there, along with Victor Orta, Angus Kinnear, Paraag Marathe and Massimo Marinelli. Jesse Marsch claimed he hadn’t heard the anti-board chants, nor the familiar singing of Bielsa’s name, but I sense everyone heard and felt the tangible anger in the crowd.

Ahead of these ‘cup finals’ there have been many calls for the fans to support the team. It’s the one thing we’ve never needed telling. We’ve seen some appalling football this season, but the support of the fans has been the one constant: 4-0 down against Manchester City and all you can hear is Marching on Together. That’s not to say the tolerance and patience of Leeds fans is endless, but I expect most crowds would have turned on the club a lot sooner than we did.

I joked during the Brighton game that the angry dissent directed at the owners was like a warm, comfortable blanket. We’d spent so many years trying to rid ourselves of Ken Bates, GFH and Massimo Cellino that I’d forgotten how much our lives used to be occupied by hating our owners. For the first time since taking over, Radrizzani felt that pressure.

Is this pressure justified? In my eyes, absolutely.

The first thing to address is this isn’t a binary thing. An owner isn’t simply ‘good’ or ‘bad’. There are gradations. The second thing to address is that Radrizzani shouldn’t get a free pass just because the owners before him were appalling. He is unmistakably better than Cellino, GFH and Bates. Suggesting he has made mistakes this season is not endorsement of Massimo Cellino’s ownership, but a reflection of the club’s need to grow and be held to higher and higher standards. Put simply, if Leeds United intend to be a Premier League club, Radrizzani has to do better than this. But that doesn’t take away the fact we became a Premier League club under his stewardship.

The time will come when we can deconstruct this season and forensically analyse where mistakes were made, though this will obviously need the context of this chapter’s end. It isn’t yet clear whether sacking Bielsa will be vindicated, let alone what league we’ll be in next season.

One of the things I think everyone can agree on before getting to such analysis is how tone deaf the board has been. Writing programme notes about the club’s aim for European football when you’re battling relegation, or suggesting you’re focussing on youth recruitment when your Under-23s are getting relegated — even the change of head coach felt clumsy and preordained, with precious little ceremony for one of the world’s greatest managers (human beings, even) who brought success to the club. While Radrizzani and Orta can take credit for convincing Bielsa to come to Leeds, it isn’t such a lasting legacy that they can hide behind it indefinitely. This is still the ownership that thought Thomas Christiansen and Paul Heckingbottom were the right choices. While both were lovely gentlemen, Leeds is a tricky beast. Jesse Marsch hasn’t yet managed to prove anything to anyone, except that he possesses an affable personality in front of TV cameras. I sense that until he does the judgement of Radrizzani will continue to hang in the balance. There isn’t yet any sign of a footballing identity, philosophy, or even gameplan. This can be justified for now by the lack of squad options and high standard of opposition, but it’s hard to know whether Marsch is a Klopp-in-waiting or another well-meaning Heckingbottom.

As another season reaches its end, it’s quite sombre to reflect on how different things are compared to a year ago. Leeds’ last game of the season was a 3-1 thumping of relegated West Brom at home, cementing a 9th place finish. Only one loss in eleven games, four consecutive wins. Understandably spirits were high. We had the world’s greatest man pacing outside the dugout and we’d reminded the world what a brilliant club we are. Fast forward to the present day and our final home game was a tense, unpleasant affair, with fans chanting for the departed Bielsa and singing for the board to be sacked. A lot can change in a year. The trick will be making sure this particular year doesn’t undo the previous three.