‘I’LL DRAG PEOPLE ALONG WITH ME’
PAUL Heckingbottom may not be the man Leeds fans want, at least if the outcry on fans’ forums is any gauge.
But after six months of a season that has veered from the sublime to the ridiculous, the 40-year-old Yorkshireman may be the man they need.
In the 14 years since Leeds’ relegation from the Premier League, 19 men have occupied the Elland Road dugout. For many - not least Thomas Christiansen that seat proved far too hot.
As defeats mounted amid a disciplinary meltdown, the Dane became increasingly subdued and monosyllabic.
Serious
Even in the good times he appeared introverted and serious, a perpetually furrowed brow betraying the pressure of managing this fallen behemoth.
“I felt the players were a little bit stressed when they went into games,” said owner Andrea Radrizzani
(pictured right), who rather harshly called Christiansen “a mistake”. “We needed a coach with personality to calm them.”
At first glance, Heckingbottom, lured from Barnsley after two years of quiet overachievement, doesn’t fit the bill. The former Manchester United trainee certainly isn’t a larger-than-life character in the mould of Neil Warnock or Harry Redknapp.
But if we assume that ‘personality’ is shorthand for self-belief, the new Whites boss has that in spades. Like a younger, less belligerent Mick McCarthy – a fellow Barnsley boy – Heckingbottom is straighttalking, pragmatic and fazed by nothing.
That much was evident in his opening media call, when he gently scoffed at questions over the length of his contract.
“Doesn’t bother me,” he said. “A contract is worth what the severance payment is. That’s it. In this business, we all know an 18-month contract can last three years or six weeks. That’s how I look at it.”
He cursorily dismissed Barnsley’s complaints over Leeds approach, just days after he’d signed a new deal at Oakwell. “If anything, they are the winners in all this,” he stated, referencing the £500,000 release clause that Leeds activated to release him.
He refused to set arbitrary targets, outline expectations or discuss the myriad men who’d tried and failed before him.
“I don’t know what they did and I don’t want to know,” added Heckingbottom. “I’ll just enjoy it. I’ll block out all the distractions, all the white noise. I’ve got a clear picture in my head of what the future looks like and I’ll drag people along with me.”
Torture
For Heckingbottom, this is a yearned-for chance to show his coaching mettle. Barnsley’s straitened circumstances often left him performing administrative duties at Oakwell, torture for a man who loves to work on the grass.
At Elland Road, scouting and recruitment will be controlled by director of football Victor Orta, leaving the manager free to revive a side seven points shy of a play-off spot pre-weekend.
What’s for certain is that Leeds’ players will challenged. Having been forced to scour the lower leagues for uncut gems at Oakwell, Heckingbottom was asked if he’d enjoy working with players more like the finished article.
“There’s no such thing,” he insisted. “Nobody wins anything unless they overachieve. No-one. I love thinking that way because there’s always more you can get out of people. “The overriding factor at any club is building a winning team. But, within that, you need players who are determined to get better regardless of their stature. Only when you get that will you succeed.” At Leeds, only a place in the Premier League represents success. In Heck- ingbottom, Leeds not only have someone who recognises that, but genuinely believes he can deliver it.
THOMAS Christiansen must have known he was doomed the second he opened last weekend’s matchday programme.
Inside, chief exec Angus Kinnear announced that he and owner Andrea Radrizzani believed the Leeds squad was strong enough to finish in the top six. That the time had come to re-state the club’s play-off ambitions.
As a threat, it wasn’t even veiled. The tools, it said, were adequate. Therefore, the workman had to be defective. Hours later, hot on the heels of a 4-1 hammering by Cardiff, Christiansen’s 35-game reign was over.
That the Dane made mistakes is not in doubt. Poor substitutions. Tactical inflexibility. After a swashbuckling start had caught rivals on the hop, Leeds were swiftly worked out. Christiansen, though, kept flogging the same dead horse.
Mockery
Nevertheless, the 44-yearold was sold short by a transfer policy over which he had no control – and signings that make a mockery of Kinnear’s play-off claims.
Victor Orta, the director of football who controls all recruitment at Elland Road, snared some gems last summer.
Samu Saiz, a shoo-in for player of the year, has been an unqualified success. Yet the Spaniard also left some gaps.
Chris Wood’s deadline day departure to Burnley was as predictable as it was inevitable, but the Kiwi striker, scorer of 30 goals last season, was never properly replaced.
Pierre Michel-Lasogga has bags of enthusiasm but the mobility of a fridge-freezer. JayRoy Grot has seen less action than a Tibetan monk.
So slim were his pickings that Christiansen frequently deployed Kemar Roofe as a lone front man. How many other sides with promotion ambitions start an out-of-position winger up top?
Leeds blatantly lacked teeth, yet January came and went with nary a hint of striking reinforcements. Contrast that with Derby County, who added Cameron Jerome to a side already featuring Matej Vydra, David Nugent and Sam Winnall.
To put Leeds’ current position into perspective, consider where Garry Monk’s men would have finished last year without Wood’s heroics.
A lot lower than seventh, that’s for sure.
If Leeds’ striking deficiencies were glaring, so too was a dearth of leadership. A week before the season kicked off, nobody – including Christiansen – knew who would captain the side.
Such uncertainty can be positive. During Euro 96, England often had seven club captains on the pitch, any one of whom could have led the side.
Sadly, the opposite was true of Leeds.
That has become increasingly clear on a number of fronts, not least a shocking run of four red cards in five games. Gaetano Berardi’s expulsion against Cardiff was the latest in a long line of unnecessary dismissals. From Saiz spitting at Newport’s Robbie Willmott to Eunan O’Kane’s bout of handbags at Ipswich, each was born of childish frustration. Yes, discipline starts with the manager. But, as Christiansen lamented, he couldn’t be in their heads. When his charges crossed the white line, he needed wily, experienced pros to spot raging tempers before they detonated. Such players can also manage a game – something Leeds have utterly failed to do during recent first-half collapses to Millwall and Cardiff.
Bombast
If that England side shipped an early goal, the likes of Adams, Ince and Pearce bellowed at team-mates to keep the ball, sit tight and see out the storm. For all the experience of Liam Cooper and tub-thumping bombast of Pontus Jansson, nobody in Leeds’ side is possessed of such authority. Once again, January was not used to fill the void. That is not to say Orta should be sacked, as some fans demand. Rather that Radrizzani and Kinnear must be more realistic about the merits of their squad if new manager Paul Heckingbottom is to get a realistic crack. Right now, Leeds resemble Derby under Steve McClaren: scintillating on their day but lacking the backbone that Gary Rowett has so emphatically instilled. Like several sides, they have a puncher’s chance of making the top six – but no more. If that is to change, the men in the boardroom must stop looking at the workman and focus on the tools.