IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS… - Right in the Gary Kellys 13/5/22

It doesn’t seem like that long ago when Marcelo Bielsa rolled up at an underperforming Leeds United. With a reputation as a maverick, an innovator and in English football pretty much an unknown quantity.

It says much about how far we’ve come since then, that in his first match against Stoke most Leeds fans expected more of the same, probably a draw, maybe a loss – could we pinch a cheeky one-nil? What followed was a lesson in football for Gary Rowett's men. The only clue perhaps to this transformation on a mid-table group of underachievers, Kalvin Phillips’ cheeky riposte to Rowett in the press conference preceding.

Phillips like Klich, Ayling, Cooper, Bamford, Dallas, Alioski saw their profile as a player sky rocket. Again in reflective mode – you would never suspect any of them would scale the heights they have done, only for our now departed Head Coach. Bielsa brought through Struijk, Cresswell, Hjelde, Bate, Greenwood and Gelhardt too – part of his philosophy around the careful but very deliberate introduction of youth team players. And not only did he eventually get that group promoted, they thrived in their first Premier league season.

Fast forward to now. Leeds United are locked in a relegation dogfight with survivalists Burnley. Our limp surrenders against Man City (twice) Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton (away), Aston Villa (home) loom large in an appalling goal difference that has locked us in the bottom three. Bamford, Phillips and Cooper have barely played all season, we’re 18th with two games left.

We’ve lost a staggering 17 games, and at Arsenal something that rarely happened under Bielsa, a total collapse of discipline saw Luke Ayling off for a rash challenge on the excellent (but at that point unthreatening) Martinelli, and Raphinha nearly join him.

It saw Meslier bumble the ball at the feet of Nketiah in a way even Kiko Casilla would squint at uncomfortably. Even after all the second half heroics it was like our season in microcosm as Arsenal remarkably ran out only 2-1 winners despite overwhelming us in possession and goal attempts.

So. Now. Why? Just why? And how?

It’s basic stuff really, Leeds in the summer made Jack Harrison’s third loan spell into a permanent transfer – so didn’t really add to the squad. They brought in Firpo to replace Alioski and then Dan James late in the window in an area already well covered. They then only added under 23s, Hjelde, Bate, McGurk, and Klaesson.

That squad was already lightened by the loss of Hernandez, Berardi, Alioski, and Casilla. Even then the general consensus amongst supporters, pundits and at times even Bielsa was that we were then reliant on the Under 23s to back us up, that was trotted out even as a `plan’. No back up for Patrick Bamford or Kalvin Phillips was signed. We decided to rely on Meslier as our No.1 backed up by the untried Klaesson. Even then it felt risky. And by crikey how that unravelled.

By September we were missing Bamford, Phillips and Cooper the `spine’ of the team. Having baulked at Huddersfield’s demands for O’Brien we had no senior cover in a holding midfield role, we were playing Tyler Roberts as a striker, and Firpo was struggling to settle into the premiership, in fairness beset by illness and injuries. The team creaked and was tired.

We won’t list injuries here but the hokey cokey of players in, players out plagued our season after that. For our board it seemed though that a spirited 3-2 win against West Ham was sufficient to ignore the January transfer window, make repeated bids for attacking midfielder Brendan Aaronson and then make no effort at all to get any sort of back up for Phillips or Bamford.

To everyone outside Leeds’ amazement the window passed us by. Everton, Newcastle, Aston Villa and Burnley all invested. Only Norwich, Watford and Leeds didn’t. The present bottom three. Arrogance is just a word. Complacency is another and naivety is another.

There is some mitigation when you look at the quality of the squad we had and have, Raphinha, Rodrigo, Harrison, Koch, Meslier, James, Gelhardt, Struijk… Surely there’s enough there to keep us up? But you stretch that back to the summer – we didn’t really do anything there either. And what happened to Sheffield United happened to us.

The small group of quality players were injured long term. The replacements were tired and not at the same level. And then just like Sheffield United the manager paid the price. It’s worse than that of course. Albeit much was made of the gratitude felt towards Bielsa the narrative was one of blame.

Unsubstantiated though they may be the rumours were of a refusal to take Harry Winks or Donny Van De Beek on loan. That the board had `tried’ but Bielsa had refused. Now you can look at that two ways. Yes it’s the manager’s decision and that’s a huge show of respect by them towards Bielsa, and Bielsa respecting the current squad. But the other side is similarly that a good working relationship needs surely to be open and that if everyone in and around the club sees a need to add players, then we find a way to make that happen.

The further narrative was that as a club wed decided to pave the way for Lewis Bate, Hjelde, Cresswell, Gelhardt to be our new spine and that this was obviously working… Well it didn’t.

And Bielsa didn’t last long, again the tabloids full of criticism of a refusal to change tactics, of a squad beset with injuries because of too harsh training methods. Significant defeats to Liverpool and most of all the 7-0 against Man City spelt the end for Bielsa. The latter lingers in the memory, as Bielsa stared into the emptying stands at the end of the game instead of swiftly spinning round and marching to the changing room. It spoke to me of a man who felt things were now outside his control, and it was tragic.

Whilst replacing Bielsa with Marsch has at times seemed a good move and the team more solid, the problems of lack of personnel and an inability to bring in new players reminds this older Leeds fan of Warnock replacing Grayson, same ingredients, different chef.

So basically a slightly different version of what we had before. Burnley at least have a new striker, Everton too have Benitez’ last signings to bolster the team. The times Marsch has been caught out against Villa, man City, and Arsenal are not that different to a Bielsa team despite what anyone might say.

Whatever the result against Chelsea was, there is no reason why we should be in this position. Let’s finish by comparing now to the last time we suffered relegation from the top flight.

In 2003 we had serious financial difficulties and were on the verge of administration. No one wanted to invest in us, we had a weak team and were well beaten. We couldn’t even persuade a manager to work for us leaving the weight of responsibility on former assistant Eddie Gray.

This time round, we have two England Internationals in the squad, the best young Brazilian attacking player in Europe, some of the best young talent out there. We have the backing not only of Radrizzani, but of the San Francisco 49ers. We were one of the few teams in the top flight to make a profit. Yet when all it may have taken was investment in 2 or 3 new players we chose the route of chaos. We chose to sabotage ourselves.

For me that is inexcusable.

We cannot completely ignore the role our chairman had in getting us promoted or that of Victor Orta, but it makes it all the more incomprehensible that you would put all of that at risk. There may be mitigation that we in the stands or reading newspapers simply don’t know, perhaps the boards hands were tied for various reasons, but could you see the boards at Arsenal, Manchester United or Newcastle not fighting that one out? You have to don’t you as a leader?

This is the avoidable decline and we may not survive it. If we don’t learn from it it will have been a wasted effort and a resumption of the cycle of incompetence and lack of vision that landed us in the championship and league one in 2003-2020.

The best we can do as supporters is try not to lay all the blame on Jesse Marsch, a manager who could quite easily have said no to this sideshow in incompetence and got a well paid gig in Europe or the MLS. The players and Marsch can and should be doing better but they are all very clearly the victims of the poor decisions around them. With two games left, it remains to be seen if Leeds United can avoid an ever more likely relegation.