Great expectations - The Square Ball 17/8/22


FOR THE BALLON D'OR

Written by: Steven York

Expectation management in football is nearly impossible. You need only browse the hashtags of other clubs to realise that delusion and ambition are very close to one another. Some Aston Villa fans believe they have the divine right to be competing for the Champions League, perhaps in response to the enormous investment in the playing squad, perhaps in response to dusty trophies in their cabinet from aeons ago. Leeds fans, too, have no real idea what to expect.

The worst thing about life in the Premier League so far is that we got our seasons back-to-front. No one would have lamented a tough, tense, first season with some final-day heroics ensuring survival, followed by an impressive top-half finish second time around. But because we overachieved in 2020/21, anything but progress in 2021/22 felt like regression. Alas, it was always going to be tricky to better our first season without big changes.

So here we are in our third season, with a win and a draw against mid-table Premier League fodder and the new billionaires (again) of Chelsea up next. What does success look like now?

The pragmatist in me knows that dull stability is the obvious goal. Leeds need to avoid relegation for the next several seasons and incrementally evolve the squad to be both better and younger than the one that struggled in 2021/22. Therefore, finishing 17th again would be fine. Keeping our heads above water is realistically ‘success’ for the foreseeable future.

The league is incredibly competitive below the top few ultra-rich clubs. There are at least eight teams that could consider survival a successful goal, given anything more lucrative is definitely out of reach. The grim reality is that Leeds will again need to shrug off any hope or expectation of repeating the heroics of the first season and strap in for a long, gritty fight for survival.

The problem is it’s easy to get carried away when exciting new faces arrive. I’m already convinced that Brenden Aaronson is going to win the Ballon d’Or.

Leeds United are a club going through a period of transition. We’ve recently seen Berardi, Alioski, Pablo, Phillips, Raphinha and Bielsa depart, while the pillars of Dallas, Cooper, Ayling and Klich are due to feature less as time goes on. The job this season is to survive without Phillips and Raphinha while integrating new players. If we can marginally improve on last season having lost such key personnel, that’s progress. Then we’ll need to do it all again next season after another meaningful round of recruitment.

‘Better’ looks like being further away from death. It looks like finding ways to effectively use both Joe Gelhardt and Patrick Bamford in a season. It looks like finding a regular, reliable solution to the left-back position. It looks like recruiting (or promoting) younger players to replace those who are hitting the downward slope of their careers. It looks like spending the next decade becoming an established top-half team.

It isn’t sexy or glamorous, but it’s important that we calibrate our expectations so that surviving is the goal. Surviving comfortably is progress. Anything more is remarkable. The players, coaches and ownership should be assessed accordingly.

Brenden Aaronson is still winning the Ballon d’Or, though.

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