Leeds United manager hunt update as 49ers Enterprises set soft deadline for appointment - YEP 22/6/23

Like a player who dwells on the ball while all around him scream for a pass, Leeds United know they've got to come up with the goods.

By Graham Smyth

A fortnight on from the club's announcement that 49ers Enterprises had agreed a deal to take ownership of the club from Andrea Radrizzani, Leeds remain without a manager, although not for much longer.

What the club say is a meticulously thorough recruitment process has taken them to within 10 days of the pre-season start date, giving the incoming boss a tiny window of opportunity to get his feet under the table in his Thorp Arch office prior to welcoming the squad back to training.

Sam Allardyce will tell you this 10-day period is a luxury, having parachuted into the midst of a relegation battle in its very final stages, but even he has spoken of the need to hit the ground running at full tilt this summer.

"Leeds need to hit the ground running today, not tomorrow, today," he said on June 8, by which time he knew that he would not be the manager. His suggestion, then, was a Karl Robinson and Robbie Keane management team and a seat upstairs for himself.

We know now that Allardyce's ideal scenario will not become a reality - Nick Hammond has been drafted in to oversee the transfer window pending a full review of the football operation - but two weeks on we still don't know who the Whites will appoint as their manager.

Impatience, among supporters, is understandable. The fixtures are out. Opposition analysis can at least begin, ahead of summer changes across the Championship. The Carabao Cup draw has been made. Players will be returning from their personal training camps abroad and gearing up for day one of pre-season testing.

49ers Enterprises, though, still have their heads buried deep in the process to identify the man to lead the players to promotion glory next season. Unsurprisingly for an investment group already backing a sporting outfit that makes big use of big data and artificial intelligence, data has played a role in their search for a manager, underpinning their attempt to single out the candidate best placed to mastermind a Premier League return at the first attempt. Face-to-face interviews have taken place this week in London with CEO Angus Kinnear and chairman elect Paraag Marathe and the decision makers were pleased and impressed with what they heard from Thursday's interviewees. Reports that Patrick Vieira has become the leading candidate don't quite chime with noises from the club that suggest the process is still very much an open, undecided race with a number of applicants remaining in contention.

This final stage of the process should be wrapped up tomorrow, if not today. All of their efforts should amount to a decision and subsequent announcement by the time the weekend is through. It really has to, because the Championship waits for no one and the same will soon be said for a fanbase on tenterhooks.

What is clear is that 49ers Enterprises are backing themselves to get this right. They're holding on until they have explored the options and reached certainty, ignoring the raised hands and cries of urgency all around them. Holding their nerve, you could call it, or testing the nerves of supporters. Both can be true at once. Any football folk around the investment group - there have been some sounding boards in place - can tell them that the length of their deliberations will either be justified in full by promotion or hung around their necks like a millstone.

Taking this long and getting it wrong will be unthinkable. Get it right, though, and no one will be able to quibble - think Jack Harrison after a lung-bursting support run that ends up being no more than a decoy as a team-mate sticks the ball in the net. As much as he might still want to make his point, there's no arguing with the result. Over to 49ers Enterprises. What have you got?