Leeds back in the big time
Bielsa’s men end 16-year exile from Premier League
Ambition, relegation and financial implosion
Leeds United were ambitious; too ambitious. Having qualified for the Champions League, spending big money to do so, the gamble backfired. By the time they were relegated in 2004, having borrowed money based on top-four income streams, they did not only lose Premier League status, they sold the family silver.
The best players – Rio Ferdinand, Jonathan Woodgate, Mark Viduka and James Milner, to name a few – had already been transferred to raise emergency funds when the club were also forced to sell Elland Road and their training ground. The debt was out of control.
Yet, in their second season in the
Championship under manager Kevin Blackwell, Leeds almost avoided the implosion that was to follow. Under new ownership, which took a controlling stake for £10million and installed Ken Bates, the former Chelsea chairman, at the helm, they reached the play-off final in 2006. “The first task is to stabilise the cash flow and sort out the remaining creditors,” Bates said. “But there is light at the end of a very long tunnel.”
He might have been right if Leeds had won that play-off game, but they lost to Watford 3-0.
Blackwell was sacked the following season after a poor start but Leeds had no money, relying on free transfers and loans to reshape the squad. John Carver replaced him but could not arrest the decline. In came Dennis Wise and Gus Poyet, but they were just as bad.
Bates had not stabilised the cash flow and, with relegation to League One all but assured, Leeds entered administration in May 2007. The 10-point penalty imposed by the Football League confirmed it.
The League One crash landing
Put up for sale by administrators
KPMG that summer, a company advised by Bates was remarkably allowed to buy the club again and retained him as chairman, but the Football League was unimpressed and imposed another 15-point penalty before they had kicked a ball.
Leeds still made the play-off final, but lost to Doncaster. Wise had already left to become director of football at Newcastle, Poyet joined the coaching staff at Tottenham and was replaced by club legend Gary Mcallister.
He was, in turn, replaced by Simon Grayson, another former player who had done a fantastic job with Blackpool. In his first season, Leeds lost in the play-offs again, to Millwall in the semi-finals.
In 2010, Grayson secured promotion back to the Championship, after the best start to a season by a Leeds team, as runners-up to Norwich.
A missed opportunity
Leeds still did not have much money and fans were restless. The team had momentum and a popular manager, but the loss of Jermaine Beckford, on a free transfer to Everton, was galling. Beckford scored 71 goals in 126 appearances, but Leeds had become a club for richer ones to feed off.
Grayson managed the following season superbly. He had a strong team, a powerful midfield pairing of Neil Kilkenny and Bradley Johnson combined with an attack of Robert Snodgrass, Jonny Howson, Max Gradel and Luciano Becchio.
They also had a young Kasper Schmeichel in goal. The fact six of those seven went on to play in the Premier League, but not with Leeds, tells the story of a club who could not keep their best players.
Grayson got them in the promotion hunt, but Bates refused to let him spend any money in the January window, most notably on Ipswich centre-half Gareth Mcauley. Bates said he was too old and too
expensive at £400,000. Mcauley moved to West Bromwich Albion and spent the next seven years in the Premier League.
That refusal to invest tipped many supporters over the edge. When some protested, Bates described them as “morons”.
Championship purgatory
Grayson could not repeat the trick. A poor start, confounded by the loss of key players, led to the sack. In came Neil Warnock in February 2012. With his team hovering in mid-table, the club were sold to GFH Capital in November. Turmoil in the boardroom followed.
Brian Mcdermott replaced Warnock, but he could not turn the club around. Mcdermott spoke well, had big plans, but failed.
He was “sacked” by new owner Massimo Cellino, the first in a series of volatile decisions by the Italian. But Cellino did not yet have control of the club. When he did finally take control a month later, Mcdermott remained but the team’s form over the second half of the 2013-14 campaign was dreadful. Mcdermott resigned that summer.
Cellino’s first managerial appointment was Dave Hockaday, the former manager of then non-league Forest Green Rovers impressing during the interview stage. He won one game and spent just 70 days in the job.
Darko Milanic was named as Hockaday’s replacement, but left the following month and was replaced by caretaker manager Neil Redfearn.
Cellino was forced to stop taking day-to-day control of the club when the Football League unearthed documents showing he had a conviction for tax fraud in Italy. The ban lasted from December 2014 to April 2015. Although Redfearn avoided a return to League One, he was replaced in the summer of 2015 by Uwe Rosler, who in turn was removed shortly after for Steve Evans to take control.
Amid the melodrama, Cellino was doing something for the longterm benefit of the club, stripping staff numbers back 700 to just over 200. He was getting ready to sell.
Garry Monk took over as manager in June 2016 and, for much of the campaign, Leeds kept the pressure on Newcastle and Brighton at the top.
Another takeover was perhaps a distraction, Cellino selling a 50 per cent stake to Andrea Radrizzani in January. Leeds won just one of their last eight games to slip out of the top six.
Rejuvenation and promotion
Radrizzani, who took a 100 per cent stake in the summer of 2017, has been ambitious, bold and, after a difficult start, the only one during the wilderness years who has backed up his words with deeds.
Thomas Christiansen, his first manager, lasted only a few months, replaced by Barnsley’s Paul Heckingbottom, who never managed to win over a sceptical fan base. He lasted four months.
Having arrived with a five-year plan to get back into the Premier League, Radrizzani switched to a three-year one. He invested heavily and, in June 2018, lured the celebrated Marcelo Bielsa to the club.
He gambled and, this time, Leeds have won. Radrizzani has not only built a strong team, he has also bought the stadium and the training ground again. The plans for the future are impressive.
There was more suffering last season, when Leeds’s defeat by Derby in the play-off semi-finals could have been the end of this team. Instead, it was the start.
West Brom’s defeat last night confirmed history has been made, but the rest will not be forgotten. Leeds will always remember how long it took to get back to the top.
Radrizzani has been ambitious, bold and, after a difficult start, the only one who has backed up his words with deeds