Javi Gracia exclusive: What went wrong – and right – at Leeds - The Athletic 4/5/23

Adam Crafton

As Sam Allardyce prepared to address the media for the first time as Leeds United manager on Wednesday, the man he replaced landed back in the Spanish province of Malaga.

Javi Gracia spent only 10 weeks and 12 matches in charge of Leeds and news of his departure was delivered to him personally on Monday afternoon by the club’s owner, Andrea Radrizzani.

“It was my birthday, May 1,” he smiles wryly, speaking to The Athletic in his first media interview since losing his job. “It was a phone call.”

The discussion was not a debate. The Leeds board had sealed its verdict. “It was a call to explain the situation. It was all handled correctly by the club. I have to accept the decision from the club’s owner and that’s it.”

While Gracia is coming to terms with the decision, swapping raincoats in Yorkshire for T-shirts and shorts in southern Spain, he is also eager to insert some balance into appraisals of his tenure.

By Sunday evening, Gracia’s future at the club appeared uncertain at best. Leeds experienced a dismal April, in which they lost five of their seven Premier League games. In doing so, Leeds conceded 23 goals — a record for a calendar month in the Premier League. Leeds now have only four matches remaining of the season and testing assignments lie ahead against Manchester City, Newcastle United, West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur. The club remain outside the relegation zone, nestled in 17th place courtesy of a better goal difference than Nottingham Forest, but they are one of four clubs separated by a single point.

Gracia arrived at Leeds with a good reputation. He impressed at Watford in a spell between 2018 and 2019 where he took the club to an FA Cup final and his CV also features a promotion from the third division in Spain with Cadiz and the second division with Almeria. He also previously guided a cash-strapped Malaga outfit to two top-half finishes in La Liga.

Leeds turned to him in late February after sacking Jesse Marsch with the club in a relegation fight.

The 53-year-old did not immediately replace Marsch, with the club’s under-21 boss Michael Skubala taking interim charge. The club saw an approach for Rayo Vallecano’s Andoni Iraola blocked, while Feyenoord’s Arne Slot ruled himself out. The former Ajax manager Alfred Schreuder fell out of contention after a negative online response from fans. As such, Leeds turned to Gracia.

For the Spaniard, it was a peculiar period. It may now feel like a hallucination, but he started well. During his first six games, Leeds won three, against Southampton, Wolves and Nottingham Forest, drew against Brighton and lost at Chelsea and Arsenal. Players say privately they enjoyed his training sessions and liked the man.

The 10-point haul elevated Leeds from second-bottom in the top flight when Gracia arrived into relative safety. Then, in one afternoon, the season began to implode. Leeds led 1-0 against Crystal Palace until first-half stoppage time on April 9. Had Leeds won the match, they would have been 12th in the table. Instead, Marc Guehi equalised for Palace just before the interval and the visitors ended up winning 5-1.

It all left Leeds supporters wondering what on earth happened in the dressing room at half-time.

“I would not centre this on the half-time interval,” Gracia insists. “It is more about the minutes before half-time when we conceded a goal from a set piece. That first half against Palace, both in my opinion and also in the view of many people around the club, was really, really good. We dominated the match and we created chances. It was incredible to me that we went in at half-time drawing. We were balanced in our play. Then the situation that followed was hard to understand.

“The second half was very tough to take.”

Leeds followed it up with another heavy home defeat, this time 6-1 by Liverpool and all of a sudden Gracia’s future felt in question.

“These moments were difficult for everybody. Nobody likes losing like that.”

His trail of thought wanders and he becomes a little defensive. “When we arrived, we were 19th in the table. In my first training session, we had 11 players injured and we trained with 10 healthy outfield senior players. This was not easy. It was only because of the will of the players and exceptional hard work by the medical team, everyone pulling in the same direction. Then we went and beat Southampton. Bit by bit, we got some players back and the team grew. But the inflexion point was against Palace.”

Confidence slipped away from this young Leeds squad like water disappearing down a drain.

“The dynamic had felt really positive and, even recently, we did start some of these games in a very positive and concentrated manner. But maybe we did not have that bit of fortune for a ball to drop our way or a decision to go our way. In the last game against Bournemouth, we had a call where it looked like a penalty but was right on the edge of the area. I felt we had started the game well and then we conceded two goals quickly.

“I had the feeling that the players felt a little like a boxer who had been hit, who is down for a few moments and wants to get up but is not able to. It transmitted something negative that did not correspond with what I believe my players really are.

“There is a psychological aspect. A player can enter subconsciously into a vicious circle from which they cannot escape. And we did not have that moment go our way with the fine margins. In the last minute against Leicester, Patrick had a chance just wide and Marc Roca came close to scoring a winner.”

At Leeds, the decision to dismiss Gracia was not unanimous.

The club’s sporting director, Victor Orta, also departed the club on Tuesday because the Spaniard was opposed to the call and not prepared to countenance a replacement. His loyalty essentially cost him his job. Contenders for the interim role also included former Leeds player Lee Bowyer, while the ex-Leeds manager Simon Grayson would also have been prepared to take it on. Orta has not, at this stage, requested a penny in compensation from the club. Before leaving, both Orta and Gracia delivered farewell speeches to the coaching staff and players, some of whom were left sobbing according to people present in the room.

Gracia says: “I can honestly say my time at Leeds has been an enriching experience and the human qualities of Victor Orta have been an authentic pleasure to be around. It was one of the places in my career where they have made me feel good and comfortable in myself. Personally, I did not know Victor very well before taking the job. I had never spent time with him previously.

“It’s been a very intense period. It hurt me a lot to lose my job, but I have to say Victor’s exit is just as difficult for me, if not more.”

Gracia stresses the need for patience with young players, which is particularly crucial at Leeds where the goalkeeper Illan Meslier and playmaker Brenden Aaronson, both aged 22, have been under the microscope, along with the 21-year-old Crysencio Summerville.

“With young players, you have to have patience and trust that within the inconsistencies, you have a player in your hands for the future. It is a coach’s role in the present moment to help them in both their good moments and weaker moments. It is not easy because I try to understand the fans’ point of view, who will criticise a player, but as a coach, we have to understand why someone is not so good and see what we can do to help them grow and mature.

“In moments of maximum tension and maximum need when everyone needs points, this is testing, but it gives the experience to become better players.”

Asked whether he considered dropping Meslier, Gracia says: “He had been much criticised for performances for three previous games, but then he played very well against Leicester, making some very important saves. You are going to have inconsistencies, good and bad moments.

“Speaking about the goalkeepers, I had confidence in all three of them, not only Illan. If we analysed errors that cost us in every position, we’ll see them everywhere across the pitch. I didn’t have any conversations about his place that were different to any other position on the pitch, so it was no different to who would play out of Luke Ayling or Rasmus Kristensen at right-back.

“There are young players who need more trust in these delicate moments than other moments.”

Gracia acknowledges there may have been times when he might have made different decisions. He does, however, have further context to add.

The club’s injuries continued to affect the team. He says: “We had a squad that was hit by injuries that impacted the balance of a team that I wanted to make more solid and consistent. The injury to Tyler Adams (the club’s USMNT midfield player) did not help us because we don’t have so many players of this profile in central midfield. He is a player who really makes a difference when it comes to interceptions and recoveries and he really covers ground. It was a big blow to lose him for the season, but we also had injuries to Max Wober (a defender who signed from Red Bull Salzburg in January) and the winger Luis Sinisterra. This took things away from our potential as a team.”

More broadly, I ask how challenging it was to take hold of a squad that appeared to be a blend of players bought for two different coaches in Marcelo Bielsa and Marsch.

“It is not easy. But on the other hand, I have to be honest and fair, I knew this entirely when I went there. I knew the facts: there were 15 games to go and I wanted to take the job. I cannot then complain it’s difficult when I knew that already. That would not be good behaviour.

“Besides, they’re not Bielsa players or Marsch players. They are Leeds players. I can honestly say that all these players, it has been a pleasure to work with them.”

In recent weeks, the Leeds fanbase has become increasingly disgruntled by the team’s performances. A further flashpoint came on Sunday when video footage showed players with their headphones in and appearing to blank young autograph-hunting supporters at the team hotel in Bournemouth. The true reality of that episode was not quite as it appeared on social media (some players had been polite), but it rapidly went viral.

Gracia becomes agitated when asked whether it is justified to question the commitment of the players.

“I respect every opinion and I respect the opinion of the Leeds fans especially. They are very loyal and love their team and they showed this in every game where I had the fortune to be at the club. Therefore, I will never say a word against the fans — quite the opposite. In my opinion, though, based on my experience with these players, I can say, 100 per cent, that the players are feeling the club and applying maximum effort to the club.

“It is difficult to find a squad with such a feeling of belonging, with this shared desire to achieve an objective and a collective mindset.”

As the interview closes, Gracia looks to the bigger picture and to the increasing trend of clubs reaching for firefighters and interim solutions late on in the season. Chelsea, Southampton, Leicester and Tottenham have joined Leeds in increasingly desperate attempts to improve their fortunes.

“There are two points of view: I only entered because another coach lost his job, but now I have left and another manager replaces me. I do think to be able to do a good job, greater stability is needed. It is more healthy and you are able to show your best work.

“But I analysed the games we played a lot and we competed with the teams around us. We got 11 points in my 11 matches, while Everton got eight points, Leicester and Southampton took six and Forest five. So everyone else down there got fewer. Of course, we are in a moment during the last few games that were not what we hoped, but from another point of view, other teams are doing worse than us. So you can be optimistic in some way.

“My evaluation of my work is that we could have done things better, of course, but we arrived in a difficult position with 10 matches without a win. We left the team outside the drop zone. So this is the evaluation that is most crude and real, about points and the place in the table. It is the most objective verdict.”

This weekend, Gracia says he will be watching on from the sofa as Leeds travel to Manchester City.

“I will be with my children, who will have their Leeds jerseys on and chanting ‘Up the Whites’.”