LEEDS PLANNING IS A COMEDY OF ERRORS

SOME wonderfully joined-up thinking at Leeds where the failing Thomas Christiansen has been replaced as manager by Paul Heckingbottom, late of Barnsley. Christiansen (below) was a Dane who played in La Liga for nearly 10 years, represented Spain, and whose coaching career spanned jobs in the United Arab Emirates and Cyprus. He had no experience of English football and his entire backroom staff were Spanish. So, naturally, after a run of seven games without a win, he has been replaced by a manager whose playing career spanned appearances at Scarborough, Hartlepool, Darlington, Norwich, Bradford, Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley, Mansfield, Gateshead and Harrogate Town, and whose name sounds like a joke from Monty Python’s Four Yorkshireman sketch. From Carlos Kickaball to Willy Eckerslike. It’s not so much a plan as a sitcom in the making.