Dave’s time was up way too soon
BUT LEEDS EXIT EASY TO PREDICT
THREE weeks ago, on this very page, I said it would be too obvious a story for Dave Hockaday to lose six of his first eight games as Leeds United head coach and then get the sack. Sadly, I was wrong on two counts. Firstly, it wasn’t too obvious. It is almost exactly what happened. Secondly, the ex-Forest Green Rovers manager didn’t even get eight games.
This week’s 2-1 League Cup defeat by Bradford was his fourth loss in six. That was enough for Massimo Cellino, Leeds’ Italian owner, who pulled the plug on Thursday night. What a terrible shame.
I’m sure people will say Dave wasn’t up to the job. But at the end of the day, he is a human being. He’d been given an opportunity and he was going about it as best he could.
He even had the gumption to warn his employer about the perils of employing a nobody. He knew the scrutiny would be intense.
Yet the ball was burst before it had even been kicked. Almost from day one, Cellino undermined his manager with slurs and snide comments.
I read a couple of interviews where the things he said about Dave came across as really uncomplimentary and disrespectful. After last weekend’s 4-1 defeat against Watford, he even said publicly that he’d decided to sack him, before making a U-turn.
Then there was the transfer policy. Dave tried to dress it up as best he could. He called it a meeting of minds. Said he had an equal say in which players were signed.
But a heck of a lot of them – I’d say a good 80 per cent – look to have come direct from the boardroom. Why would Dave want a load of Italian players? It just didn’t ring true.
Precarious doesn’t describe that job and the question you have to ask now is: who will want it?
Cellino is working to ideals that can never, ever be met. No matter who goes into that job, there will never be a beginning or an end, a chance to make a plan and stick to it. It will purely come down to how Cellino is feeling when he gets out of bed. One day, it could be that the objective is staying in the Championship. The next day, it could be to win the Champions League. Somebody will take the job because managers think they’re invincible and they all believe they can be the one to turn it around.
But I’d be very surprised if anybody lasted longer than a full season. Cellino’s track record in Italy – where he sacked 36 managers in 22 years as owner of Cagliari – suggests that.
Which manager will go to work under those circumstances? Only somebody who is happy to be in employment for a week, a month, six months, a year – and at least say they’ve been involved in Leeds.
Maybe Cellino has a grand plan. Maybe he’s lined somebody up from the opposite end of the managerial spectrum. I just don’t know.
But I do know that a thoroughly decent man has worked in horrific circumstances, under awful scrutiny and reached a very predictable end.
I just hope Cellino is honourable enough to honour whatever terms are in Dave Hockaday’s contract. Do it swiftly, and let him move on to another opportunity.
I sincerely hope that Hockaday (right) won’t be tarnished by his unfortunate association with Leeds. He is a very well-respected coach. He deserves another job and football would be worse without him.