Comme ci comme ça: Leeds United's summer of non-communication
The advantage fans have is that everything in football, whether it's comms or money or community, must ultimately be expressed with high visibility on grass.
A lot of the conversation around Leeds United's lousiness in this summer's transfer window has been about a lack of communication, but while this says some things about what has been a bad comms policy, it also says some things about football fans and a vacancy that has grown within us that the game alone no longer fills.
The plea for comments from United over the last couple of weeks has often devolved into a plea to be, basically, lied to. Even if there's nothing to say — Leeds United should say something. Even if they won't tell the truth — put out a soothing line that sounds true. Even if the transfer policy isn't looking good — put together a good comms policy that will mollify the fans.
It's an odd request and it's dangerously self-fulfilling, fans loudly begging the club to say something that will keep us, the fans, quiet. The danger is that, one day, the club does just that. People criticising the lack of a comms strategy probably won't like the results of an effective one, and will end up wondering why so many fans are now meekly swallowing so much bullshit. Well, that's just good comms, making a bad situation look good. And that only makes it harder for fans to point out a bad situation.
It's interesting then that 49ers Enterprises have been so light with the comms lately, essentially keeping schtum since Paraag Marathe's quick one-two tour of the press after the play-off final and Red Bull's investment. A lot of what Marathe said in those interviews now sounds like nonsense, because it hasn't come to pass. "We really started [last] season with a hand tied behind our back," he said, but this summer Leeds would have, "an extra five weeks to start planning our player and squad strategy. It just gives us a head start relative to ourselves ... I'm really excited about what we can do with a full off-season building this squad in this league." Maybe the sheer excitement of building a squad is the reason it's getting strung out until September.
The demands lately have been for Marathe to come back out front, take the burden of press conferencing away from Daniel Farke — who as manager is contractually obliged to the EFL to bear that — and narrate the reasons why the things he talked about in May haven't worked out by August, to let us all know what the plans are now and why.