Leeds’ caretakers deliver night to remember as search for Marsch successor is delayed - The Athletic 9/2/23

By Phil Hay

A free hit is what they would call Leeds United’s appearance in Manchester last night but how many caretakers have landed a punch away to one of the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’?

Jim Barron, as the world remembers, took out Tottenham Hotspur with Aston Villa at White Hart Lane in November 1994. Trevor Brooking set up West Ham United at Maine Road to beat Manchester City in April 2003. The ‘Big Six’ era was not even a thing 20 years ago and in all the time on either side of those games, no record exists of a club in caretaker mode doing what Leeds almost did last night at Old Trafford.

They were ruled by committee against Manchester United but in caretaker mode nonetheless, a three-way split of authority between two under-21s coaches, Michael Skubala and Paco Gallardo, and Chris Armas, Jesse Marsch’s Elland Road assistant for all of two weeks.

Skubala had the job of talking for them all pre-match and the long and short of the game plan, he said, was to “have a good go”. Tweaks here and there were promised, little breaks from Marsch’s identity, but history said this task was a hospital pass.

Leeds could not have done much more to disprove that theory.

Skubala is scheduled to retreat quietly to his academy duties once his temporary first-team stint is done and the 2-2 draw he takes with him, whatever happens now, should make him smile for years.

Leeds could have lost without many recriminations at Old Trafford, Skubala and company able to say that none of it was really their fault, but they prodded Manchester United, rattled them to the depths of a 2-0 deficit, and stopped a second-half fightback short of a defeat.

It was mayhem, it was wild and for an hour it was love, football pushing the right emotional buttons again.

Back in the day, Barron and Brooking were sentries holding what was left of the fort, and Leeds’ caretaker staff had as few odds on their side as they crossed the Pennines.

Armas, at senior level, was barely in the door having arrived from the US last month. With form obliterated and Marsch sacked just on Monday, Old Trafford threatened to be collateral damage in the search for a new head coach.

If Marsch’s dismissal brought relief and channelled optimism, Leeds still knew they were lagging in the Premier League.

There was an outside chance that by the time Manchester United came to Elland Road this Sunday (the midweek meeting was a postponed fixture from September, shelved after the Queen’s death), they would have dropped into the bottom three. Change was unavoidable but not in itself the guarantee of a silver bullet.

The tweaks applied by Skubala, Gallardo and Armas, positively consequential for 60 minutes against Manchester United, were steps in the direction Leeds have to take.

Marsch’s system was a spider’s web which trapped the Leeds squad in a largely winless state, and deviation from it is vital.

Job one was to cut the ties which stopped them from playing more freely and effectively, tapping into tactical facets Marsch preferred not to touch, but as the final half-hour in Manchester demonstrated, it is hard to invoke the Full Monty overnight.

In terms of a new head coach, ‘soon’ was the cry before this game. Time is hardly standing still with Old Trafford behind them. But last night made the point that there is a good squad to inherit at Leeds, a group with enough pedigree to tempt a self-confident manager.

Andrea Radrizzani, Leeds’ chairman, flew to England from Italy for the match, taken as a sign of him flying in to push the managerial hunt along, too. His presence was less of a hint than his tweet on Tuesday predicting “white smoke” that evening or Wednesday morning, though it is not as if Radrizzani’s tweeting is always the safest road to clarity.

Now three days on from Marsch’s dismissal, the process is whirring and “needing more time”, as Radrizzani put it in a second dispatch on Twitter. As it stands, Skubala is unclear about exactly what comes next.

It was plain from Monday onwards that they were drawn to Andoni Iraola at Spain’s Rayo Vallecano and it was tempting to think that if he was not first-choice on Leeds’ shortlist then he might be, to quote Brian Clough, somewhere in the top one. But it was plain that the La Liga club value him highly too — too high to lose easily — and Iraola took training as normal as Leeds headed for Manchester.

Subsequent Spanish reports indicated that Iraola was minded to stay put in La Liga, to stick with the good thing he is building in Madrid. The pressure on Leeds to land on “Go” with an appointment felt as severe before kick-off here as it had been when they cast out Marcelo Bielsa nearly a year ago and landed on Marsch.

Manchester United away is the fixture that most brings out the Leeds in Leeds, a game to count down to. The club will rarely go to Old Trafford as distracted as they were pre-match, with minds on other things. But 60 seconds was all it took to plug the wires back in, an interception from Pascal Struijk, a little jink by Wilfried Gnonto and a low hit from the teenage forward which David de Gea reached for hopelessly.

Here, inside a minute, was why people do not give up on football. You never know and you never will, until the sport is played by robots. Having a good go was where Leeds were at: pressing hard, steaming in, competing like they were fresh from replays of January 3.

Skubala was the man at the front, the permanent presence on the touchline, a gently-spoken Football Association product making Erik ten Hag have kittens.

Leeds’ press was clever and organised, adapting to match up to Manchester United’s back three out of possession, and while they were shaken in moments, falling back on a goal-line clearance from Max Wober at one stage in the first half, it had to be that way.

Skubala and his staff were thrown the reins with no time to cover every base. “Twenty minutes’ shape,” Skubala replied when asked what they had been able to do to prepare in practical terms.

It might have been that which told as an old rivalry spiralled into a classic after half-time.

Ten Hag’s starting line-up did nothing for him but his substitutions and the repositioning of Marcus Rashford dug him out once Leeds went 2-0 up three minutes into the second half through Rafael Varane’s own goal, an apologetic conversion of Crysencio Summerville’s cross.

Rashford scored just past the hour with a header, hanging in the air. Jaden Sancho, off the bench, poked a shot past Illan Meslier to equalise eight minutes later. The tide was ominous but Leeds waded through it, too invested in the madness to finish with nothing, too committed to mope off at the end. Luke Ayling played out of his skin, for as long as his energy held up.

For Skubala and the coaches beside him, it was no audition and no job application. It would not have been even had Leeds won last night. Sunday’s rematch could yet fall to them too, but Leeds are looking for a managerial solution externally.

“I don’t know what’s going on with the situation,” Skubala said. “All I’ve done is concentrate on the team. I’m a little disappointed because I thought we did enough to win.”

A point was a point, though, and the club will not complain about a cameo which enhanced the appeal of the vacancy they are trying to sell.