Leeds fans are like duck-billed platypuses/platypi in that they are a strange breed that defy neat categorisation. Passionate and quick to close defensive ranks, they are equally quick to demand answers and changes. In this case, is Uwe Rosler, as claimed by The Yorkshire Post, “in need of a quick fix.”
The YP draw parallels with previous seasons and results, indicating worrying trends and painful similarities between Rosler’s version of Leeds United and other versions under differing iterations and variances of Leeds United teams. They say Leeds United have reached a ‘barometer’ after “neogtiating their 10th league game of the campaign” and that this is a time when those in charge of football clubs, as well as the fans and football writers “start studying league tables”, flying in the face of the much-heralded ‘where are we by Christmas thinking’.
The YP point out that Leeds, in 16th place with only three points separating the Whites from the relegation places and seven points behind the play-offs, are in a perilous situation. This position is compounded by a ‘miserable’ return of a mere 11 points from a possible 30 so far this season. Rounding off the sory of supposed abject misery and woe is a reference to Leeds’ ‘W’ record which stands at two wins from the opening 10 league games, a return that the YP say has only been worse in three starts to seasons from the 16 seasons spent at or below this level.
Any fans from other clubs would be running for the hills at this news, or burrowing into their apocalyptic bunkers as if the world would suddenly fall around their ears ala Chicken Little style. Not Leeds fans…or so you’d think. However, there are worryingly doubters and dissenters on social media platforms, doubters with managerial skills honed by hours of FIFA action, dissenters with football acumen shaped by tinkering with Football Manager saves, the Leeds United fans are beginning to become dissolved into two camps: sack Rosler and replace him NOW or keep him, give him time.
I suppose a lot of the ‘get him out’ furore is fuelled by three things: reports like the one in the YP, the reputation and previous history of Massimo Cellino as ‘il mangia-allenatori‘ (the manager eater) and by a genuine desire for progress and improvement from the team. One thing that a drowning man clings to is hope, often forlorn hope, but is this what Leeds United fans are clinging to after only 10 games into the season; a forlorn hope that things will get better, that the big win streak is just around the corner? Is the worry about this hope dissipating the thing that scares Leeds fans, makes them demand changes in the vain hope that change brings better fortune?
However, does there need to be a “quick fix” to avoid an even “quicker boot” from the club with Rosler bouncing down the Gelderd Road? Reading all those Facebook groups and the ‘ITK’ managers preaching from their well-worn bum grooves in the comfy cushions, you’d think so. Suddenly, ‘forward planning’ or ‘need for stability’ loses its appeal in the face of the ‘hire ’em, fire ’em’ approach that Leeds United fans used to chastise MAssimo Cellino for, yet are now clamouring for.
You can’t blame the fans, all they want is success. You can blame articles like the YP one, articles written in a mire of misery and aiming to draw on developing doom and drawing despondency of a situation rooted in ‘the now’ and not relevant to ‘the then’ of yesteryear or previous campaigns.
There is a rising clarion call for Leeds fans to get behind the team and ignore the harbingers of doom brought on by articles and views such as those mentioned here. I know what camp I will be in. I’d rather have a slow fix that is right, rather than a quick fix akin to an Elastoplast over a crack in the Hoover Dam.