Macdeserves more from his men

Leeds United are a huge football club. A serious player in the world of football. At their footballing helm is a man who I know well. A man who has always been very good to me. A man who has given me great opportunities to see him at work and to learn.

Brian McDermott has already won promotion with Reading into the Premier League; he knows the way to achieve Leeds’ objectives. And he is committed wholeheartedly to that agenda. But he is clearly struggling right now. Results are not at the level either he or Leeds would want.

It is another situation in which you begin to wonder what the real problem might be.

Leeds have a manager who knows a way to win promotion. A man whose footballing ethic is based around hard work. At the heart of what he does, Brian has always encouraged his teams to outrun opponents. He will not tolerate his team covering less ground than the opposition. He is a clever football thinker, a student of the game.

I know, for instance, that he has worked closely with some of his former Reading colleagues to learn about Liv- erpool’s success and to take on board strategies for significantly enhancing his own methods.

He came into the job hot on the heels of Neil Warnock, another man who knows his way around the promotion field. So far, neither of these two men has been able to deliver that promotion campaign at the club.

Can it really be that suddenly, neither of these two proven men have retained their managerial skillset? Or is it that the players at the club are not willing to follow the way of the leader?

Pressure