Javi Gracia has brought order to the chaos at Leeds United - The Athletic 5/4/23
By Phil Hay
Football management is as football management does and Javi
Gracia knows this because when Watford sacked him without warning, he was
halfway through the school run. There are no sacred cows once the time comes,
just clubs drained of patience who burn bridges and turn the page as quickly as
possible.
Gracia and Watford separated in 2019 so as Brendan Rodgers
and Graham Potter were culled on the night of the long knives last Sunday, you
had to ask if much had changed. The numbers are getting worse in the Premier
League, that is true, but the merciless sacking of coaches is an ingrained
routine.
At Leeds United in 2014, Massimo Cellino kept asking where
an ostracised Brian McDermott was, his head coach happened to be spending time
in hospital with his terminally-ill mother. It stands out as a job like no
other and you really hope the money is worth it.
The way Gracia sees it: life is starting to imitate
football, or at least imitate the expectations of him and his colleagues. “It’s
not only football,” he said. “In life, it’s happening — no trust in the job,
only trust in results. Everybody wants everything immediately, pushing a
button. There is no patience. Nobody believes in the process, in the project.
But that’s not only about football.”
Except some coaching jobs are advertised as such and
Gracia’s current position at Leeds is one of them. That is not to say Leeds no
longer believe in processes or projects and, if truth be told, the club hate
being seen as part of the knee-jerking fraternity but what they were saying to
Gracia when they called on him in February was please push the button. Process,
yes, but results first. The shit is deep and we want to get out of it, hence an
initial contract to the end of the season.
Gracia has gone for process anyway because there is hardly a
coach worth their salt who likes working off the cuff or winging it; hardly a
coach who sleeps soundly if good results feel superficial. He got the backroom
staff he wanted and rendered Chris Armas, his predecessor’s assistant, a spare
part by leaving him out of it. He altered the training week and moved a little
closer to the depth of Marcelo Bielsa’s analysis sessions. His timekeeping is
strict and the players found out quickly that he preferred to explain decisions
rather than debate them. It was too late in the season to be everything at once
but it mattered that he was seen to be running the show.
It does not take much perceptive talent to tell that Gracia
would like this to blossom beyond a relegation fight. Monday’s press conference
with him developed into a discussion about his love of Leeds’ club song,
Marching on Together, and the twinkle in his eye said he was catching the bug,
even if he has the manner of someone who keeps a low profile at a party,
content with watching others enjoy themselves.
Clauses in his contract would allow for an extension in the
summer, but it has to start with points on the board. Process and project is a
results-based destination, and Gracia is in the process of earning that right,
locked in the emotional struggle of games such as Nottingham Forest at home
last night.
Emotion is a factor in evenings like this because it is
never easy to know how much to feed on it. Emotion can strangle Leeds at Elland
Road. It has also been known to rescue them here, the saving grace when all
else has failed. Riding the wave is hard to resist and harder still when the
first goal goes the way of the away team after 12 minutes, as it did for
Forest. One misplaced header from Luke Ayling and Forest were in, Orel Mangala
taking a low cross on his instep and slotting a shot into Illan Meslier’s
left-hand corner.
There and then, Leeds had two choices — panic or stick to
the programme — and it was a feather in the cap of Gracia’s coaching, both
mental and physical, that they could do the latter, invited on by a Forest side
whose submissive defensive shape might continue the stockpiling of Premier
League dismissals by doing for Steve Cooper.
The weight of pressure gave Marc Roca a free hit from 20
yards and Keylor Navas’ parry was smashed in on the rebound by Jack Harrison.
At the very end of the first half, Luis Sinisterra dinked in off the left,
dummied once and then beat Navas for a second time, making dominance pay.
Harrison looked as livewire as he has at any stage since the
debacle of deadline day, when Leeds so nearly sold him to Leicester City.
Sinisterra, injured for so long, was like a player with glue on his feet or the
ball on a string, toying with Neco Williams and flowing serenely, like
relegation was someone else’s worry. Jesse Marsch spoke so often about controlling
stress but as time went on, the stress around him only exacerbated. Gracia has
managed to control it to this point, with order replacing chaos. But even he
was three feet off the ground, fist in the air, when Sinisterra banged in
Leeds’ winner.
Elland Road has deduced already at 2-1 up, Gracia is not the
sort to be reckless in trying to run riot, neither the time nor the place to
let go of the leash. Forest had no choice but to step up in the second half but
they could not find it in them to piece together an attack yielding another
shot on target. The size of Forest’s squad is known to all and Cooper making
substitution after substitution was mud at a wall, a coach hoping it would
stick.
Five minutes of stoppage time came and went. “We should have
killed the game,” Gracia said, and the chances were there to do it.
Leeds are not out of the woods yet and Crystal Palace could
drag them back in on Sunday but it would be nice to reach the point where
Gracia is free to be picky like that. He has 10 points from six games and
unlike this time last year, there is none of the debate about whether those
points have materialised through luck or judgement.
“I do my job,” he said. “The protagonists are the players,”
and at that moment, he sounded remarkably like someone else. But this, a
short-term deal at Leeds, is a job pitch for him and he has the bit between his
teeth. A project is what he wants but push the button, immediate impact,
results now?
