re: Leeds United 2022/23 Season-Long Thread: Let’s Farke shite up

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Marc Roca doesn't get off lightly either.

Today he lost possession 20 times
won 1 of his 9 duels
made 4 fouls
won 1 tackle
made 0 interceptions.

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The real tale at Craven Cottage revolved around what was going on up in one corner of the ground — the closest to the River Thames if there was any temptation to jump into it.

One-nil down after 63 minutes and chants from the away end brewed against Victor Orta, Leeds’ never-far-from-the-talking-shop director of football. Rapidly the dissent spread its wings to encompass the club’s whole board and then zoned in on Orta again when 1-0 became 2-0. Was it this season or last? Were the club stuck on repeat? A neutral rubber-necking might class it as a cycle with nowhere left to go.

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But Gracia is a pawn in the timeline which has dragged the club to this point, save to say that the manner of his appointment was itself symptomatic of Leeds losing control. Third choice? Fourth choice? Fifth? It hardly matters beyond underlining the fact that his job was about picking up the pieces.

Over two grinding years, Leeds have sacked Marcelo Bielsa, recruited Jesse Marsch and altered their squad from one which was supposed to work for Bielsa — and did, spectacularly, for three straight seasons — to one which was supposed to work for Marsch. Very little about their football was the same, just as there is little about Gracia’s football which mimics Marsch’s fundamentals.

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Whatever the board at Leeds think of the restlessness in the away end at Fulham, it is pointless and disingenuous to argue against it. Football is not a game where exact lines can be drawn when it comes to who is responsible for which errors of judgement, but there is no way in which Orta as director of football, Andrea Radrizzani as chairman or anyone else at executive level can feasibly expect to be absolved of blame for the club circling the relegation plughole for a second season running.

Much as the game is fickle, and much as there were insanely good times, the relationship between the boardroom and the street has been rupturing for longer than good humour can sustain and, in accepting that the Premier League takes no prisoners, the facts are plain.

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The succession plan after Bielsa has not worked, not even remotely. The attempt to make the squad adequately competitive has not worked either, this season or last. Even hiring Gracia involved camping out in Andoni Iraola’s garden for a bit, flirting with Alfred Schreuder and then ending Michael Skubala’s caretaker stint as rapidly as it was given a vote of confidence.

For a while, the critical narrative sticks to looking at on-pitch mistakes, errors in tactics or the selection of a team, the attitude of the men actually kicking the ball. But as one year becomes two, it boils down to whoever is ultimately running the show. And somewhere along the line, faith in the process runs too low to feed on.

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They are looking for the great escape mark two, but this is bigger and more complex than dodging relegation again. What was heard from the away end on Saturday — including chants for Bielsa, which were not aimed at Gracia — reflected what many people are seeing: a club and a model which are at the end of the cycle, have been at the end of the cycle for a while and need fresh blood, fresh ideas and an overarching reset.

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Call it ‘the takeover’ because, if Leeds stay up, that should be coming. But nobody involved in that transaction should be in any doubt about how it will be perceived if a new dawn arrives, only for the new boss to look like the old boss.

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