With head coach Neil Redfearn edging towards the final two games of the season with a beleaguered and bedraggled Leeds United team, attention is turned toward the irascible Yorkshireman. Most are probably in sympathy wondering just how he’s managed to remain even half sane with the goings on at Cirque de Leeds that seem to come with alarming regularity. After chairman convictions, through alleged boardroom selection impositions and via a rash of ‘sicknote’ injuries, Leeds now have an ex-player suing them because apparently the Whites chose not to take him on after promises were made. Even amidst this glorious late-April sunshine, the ‘appenings up in LS11 shine more brightly.
With Redfearn facing an uncertain future (that’s the only type we do at Leeds), with the club yet to offer him a new deal, with his current contract up at the end of the season, Redfearn opened up about the situation and how he feels. In an interview with the Telegraph and Argus defends the club’s stance on not opening talks saying,
“If the club feel it’s better to sit down after the Rotherham game and talk then that’s up to them. I’ve got no god-given right to be in charge of Leeds United. The club is far more important than me.”
Whilst likely agreeing with the sentiment that no-one is bigger than the club, Leeds United fans are feeling a certain amount of sympathy with the position that Neil Redfearn is finding himself in.
Redfearn also talked about the crowd's support. "I've been on my own in the dug-out but I've felt like I've got 20,000 with me." #lufc
— Phil Hay (@PhilHay_) April 23, 2015
After all, it seems as if your face doesn’t fit in Mr Cellino’s rivoluzione gloriosa del Leeds United, then it’s a case of “bags packed and arrivaderci.”
Additionally, in other news from Elland Road, Redfearn aimed to clear and lingering doubts about the ‘Suspect Six’ and the sudden rash of injuries leading to the six foreign imports all pulling out of playing in, indeed travelling to, the Charlton game from Saturday just gone. After recent revelations of MRI scans and recent attestations that both Giuseppe Bellusci and Edgar Çani/Çanti will miss the last two games of the season, Redfearn referred back to the strange series of events saying in the Yorkshire Post,
“The surprise wasn’t that people get injured. It was the surprise that on Thursday they were fit, with one or two maybe carrying little things, and on Friday they weren’t fit.”
With this ringing in Leeds supporter’s ears (it beat the “Play for Leeds or f**k off home” chant at Charlton”), I wonder what the lead up to Saturday’s game against Sheffield Wednesday brings, you can guarantee that something will happen between now and kick-off.
