Do Leeds have enough going on to go down?
You’re unlucky to go down merely for not having a very good team. There’s usually something more, some extra element.
It’s tough these days, trying to work out whether to be happy or mad. It’s odd sometimes to listen to the noise about Leeds, outside Leeds, and hear how we seem to people who aren’t engrossed by the club every day. Record transfer fee paid for a thrilling new forward? Future star of world football smashing in superbike volleys, and he only cost £5m? (Whoever the sporting director is must be a genius!) A five goal thrashing of Cardiff in the cup, and an easy draw in the next round? Stadium always full? New American owners poised to take over, with billions in their bank accounts? It all seems pretty good, and that Jesse fella seems like a great guy who plays fun attacking football.
How is it, then, that from closer to near, none of what’s happening at Leeds feels like it’s that good? A grand total of four league wins is a big factor, and I think people forget that. Occasional viewers, who drop in to watch the odd unlucky defeat here and there, seem to assume that because we play well and only just lose against Arsenal or only just lose to Aston Villa, we must be winning the rest of the time. But look at the league table. We are not, and that’s the big worry.
It’s not so much the here and now that’s got us ‘stressed’, though. For what it’s worth, I think we’ll stay up. I trust the players to take care of that, more than I do Jesse Marsch, but that shouldn’t be taken as critical of him in particular. The actual football players tend to get left out of these debates — can Coach X keep Team Y in the Premier League? Well, that’ll have a lot to do with the players, won’t it? When a coach loses the dressing room, doesn’t that say as much about the players who wandered away, as it does about the coach?