Leeds United: Your Move Now Massimo

Here we are again, in the final throws of the season, taking stock of where we are, where we’ve just been and where we might be going for the rest of the calendar year. As always with Leeds, and especially as seems the case with Massimo Cellino, there’s no straight answer.

Article by Jeremy Taylor @jezaldinho

As Phil Hay has recently suggested in the YEP, we can’t simply paint the coming summer with either black or white – as the close season ahead could hold all manner of surprises.

What is almost certain is that Cellino will embark on a charm offensive. Around this time he likes to take stock, assess his public image and then try to fix things quickly. We’ve already seen it begin with the curious season ticket refund offer for next season, a strange and tactical move that feels both desperate and calculated.

Then there’s the literal elephant in the room that is what to do with Steve Evans. While there’s been a handful of ‘McDermott days’ (when we’ve simply failed to turn up and been humiliated by lesser teams), there have also been quite a few seriously impressive results and performances, typically against the more in-form teams in the division. And there have been runs. Series’ of wins on the bounce that are the staple of any push up the table and have seemed so elusive to Leeds in recent times. This says that behind closed doors, Evans is actually doing lots of things right and has, if nothing else, managed to establish a rapport and means of communicating with the players; something Hockaday, Milanic and Rosler clearly failed to do.

When you consider this against the lack of solid working foundation Evans has had to operate with, it only magnifies the achievement. It would have been all to easy for the players to quietly laugh and dismiss this bulging, red-faced Scotsman as nothing more than another temporary character in the Elland Road opera. But it seems he quickly obtained their respect, albeit through self-depreciation and humor, and forged a team spirit that his predecessor who arrived under such a wave of optimism failed to do. His team feels much more robust, with an ability to rise up and fight back instead of allowing deflating defeats to mount up. There’s a lot to be said for that, and Cellino would be foolish to ignore it.

The fly in the ointment as always though is personality, and in particular the chairman’s versus those he employs. Cellino is a man of many contradictions, with perhaps the most apparent one being his requirements for a coach. He appointed Evans because of his ‘no-nonsense’ approach, but equally is now growing tired of him because he talks too much. These two qualities rarely exist apart. He’s also said “everyone these days wants to be like Alex Ferguson”. Well, if you’re appointing someone to manage your football team and win matches, then why shouldn’t they look to the games greatest ever as a source of inspiration?

No, the only person that speaks too much is Massimo Cellino. It’s the manager’s job to stand in front of the media each week, not yours. It’s the manager’s job to publically analyze his team’s performance and answer difficult questions, not yours. What’s he supposed to do? Scowl in press conferences and call journalists Ostriches?

Any logical football fan will agree that Steve Evans has earned a new contract and the chance to continue what he’s started. He deserves a crack at a full close summer of rebuilding and attacking the new season with his own team. He’ll quite rightly argue that if he’s allowed to start the new season the way he’s finished this one then Massimo won’t have to worry about paying back any season ticket money. It’s just logical.

It’s a fruitless exercise though because Cellino isn’t a man who thinks logically. He’s part entrepreneur, part eccentric billionaire, mystic-madman who, it seems, happens to have a knack of being very successful in business and making money. But Leeds fans don’t really care about making money. They care about success on the field and supporting a progressive team. Nothing more.

Cellino will argue that he desperately wants success on the field too, and unlike many, I genuinely believe him. He certainly cares about the footballing side of things (as most of his ill-thought out emotion-fuelled rants testify to), and unlike any of Leeds United’s previous directors since the fateful Ridsdale era seems genuinely motivated to achieve success.

He will also point to the fact that the club now operates with losses well below the permitted threshold, which shows an impressive reversal of fortunes and a keen sense for business acumen. One could argue that turning a huge loss making football club into a small loss to potential profit making club should be of greater significance to the fit and proper persons test than whether a club owner pays tax on a yacht in a foreign country. Look at Bolton, or Portsmouth, or Blackpool with the extremely dubious Oyston’s in charge. All clubs who’ve been run into the ground without anywhere near the kind of heat Cellino has had to endure. But that’s a different conversation.

Leeds United of all clubs should be able to appreciate an owner that has done so much good for the financial health of the business, yet it seems so many of its fans don’t. Some have pointed to the fact that he still owes GFH significant sums so must be some sort of fraudster, but so what? Is it not sensible to stagger payments to a selling entity based on set performance targets of the asset being acquisitioned? It’s certainly an increasingly popular way for clubs to pay for players, so why not for ‘players’ to pay for clubs?

Sure, Cellino might have upset a handful of dinner ladies and anyone or anything to do with the number 17 along the way, but there’s no denying that the club is a much more buyable asset than it was two years ago. Back then, only a madman would have taken us on once the web of lies and deceit spun by Bates and GFH was fully unfolded through the diligence process, so we shouldn’t really be surprised that he was the one that actually stepped up.

But back to now and this is Cellino’s time (again as Phil Hay has rightly said). It’s his period of righting the self-inflicted wrongs of the season just gone. Like a bad parent at Christmas, he can enter the toyshops and bring hope and joy to those that depend on him, instantly soothing and enabling them to forget the troubles of the last year.

Cellino went at the last close season with a quiet determination that saw the likes of Chris Wood, Sol Bamba and (for me anyway) our signing of the season Stuart Dallas brought in. Rosler was appointed and started making the right noises, and everyone (barring those joyless few that are just incapable of optimism any more) looked ahead to the season eagerly.

Cellino said recently in his typically abstract, lengthy and entertaining interview to the Telegraph that until now, he’s only been able to spend 5% of his time focusing on football matters. This point is worthy of lengthy discussion in its own right, but it should be safe to say that given the incredible financial turnaround he’s overseen, we could be in for a close season even more interesting than the last.

It’s unlikely that he’ll throw the kind of money around that Middleborough, Forest or Fulham have in recent times, but if he even doubled last season’s squad investment then, in the right hands, we’d be in great shape. This would also go someway to helping keep Lewis Cook at the club.

Cellino knows this and will no doubt see it as an easy fix. Throw a few million into the transfer kitty and a lot of the noise should quickly hush down, albeit temporarily.

But Cellino is always capable of surprises, and given his position that he’s “plugged all the holes now”, it’s not beyond all realms of belief that he could go out and grab a marquee name. A player that makes the whole division put their coffee down and double take at their screens before repeating in unison “No way! To Leeds?!”

Back to Evans and Cellino could surprise us all on this point too. All the sound-bytes suggest that Evans has had it and won’t see June 1st at Elland road. But a creature as emotional as Cellino can fall back in love quickly with a few choice words… and as suggested earlier on, Evans has proven he knows how to say the right things. It’s perfectly conceivable that they could emerge from a meeting with a plan and a contract for the season ahead. It would certainly be the smart thing for Massimo to do.

Looking at Cellino’s history at Leeds and it shows that he consistently acts when things are bad, and they aren’t actually bad. Rosler targeted a top 10 finish, something Cellino was happy with… and Evans has seen the job through.

But he will probably also act if he’s had his head turned, and who knows if he has. But this is the only circumstance that would logically see Evans replaced; if someone with greater pedigree appeared. There’s been talk of Cannavaro who for various reasons would fit the bill. But Massimo’s categorically denied this is going to happen. He’s also joked about Mourinho and Ancelotti, but that’s all they are, jokes, in spite of the fact he almost certainly has spoken to them in some capacity.

But it’s perfectly feasible that someone else is waiting in the wings. It was only a year ago that a certain Claudio Ranieri was a joke figure. A footballing clown that no one would have imagined in charge of a Premier league club, never mind sitting at the top of it with a fortnight to go. And there are plenty of other Ranieri’s out there without jobs.

The miracle of Leicester has sent a message out loud and clear to the whole footballing world that a shift is occurring. The days of blank cheques trumping team spirit and togetherness could be over. There will be lots of scarred and battle-worn football managers out there who will feel invigorated by The Tinkerman’s incredible achievements. Managers who will also look at Leeds United and remember what we were, and what we could again be. The last ‘one-club city’ in Britain. A true sleeping giant.

Cellino’s recent article led with the quote “One day Leeds will be the best side in Europe”, and before the events of Leicester this year it would have been nothing more than another nonsense from a deluded billionaire. But Leicester City have shown the world again that so far as football goes, nothing is impossible.

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