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

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Javi Gracia the new favorite this morning. Did alright at Watford but guess what his preferred formation is

()()===D

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Penis ball for everyone. I think Gracia is more mid block /counter than high press

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The interview and presentation given by Javi Gracia to Leeds United focused heavily on the club’s recent matches, but in the time he had to prepare, he spent some of it picking over Chelsea’s defeat to Southampton last Saturday. Gracia offered ideas about where Leeds were going wrong and how they might improve quickly, but alongside that, he wanted the hierarchy at Elland Road to see how ready he was for their biggest game of the season by a mile.

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Contact was made with Gracia in the 48 hours after the clash at Goodison Park and he presented to the club’s board, including officials from 49ers Enterprises, in time to travel to England on Monday. His review of Southampton’s 1-0 win at Chelsea was an attempt to convince them that he was up to speed for the immediate obstacle in front of him.

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Five years ago, Gracia was given a Watford squad who were 10th in the Premier League, albeit only six points off the bottom of a congested table. They had lost half of their 24 games, a record that caused the rarely patient Pozzos to give up on Silva, whose flirting with Everton had caused a breakdown in the relationship. Gracia steered the club to 41 points and 14th place, well clear of trouble before the closing weeks of the campaign. In his autobiography, Redemption, former Watford striker Troy Deeney, the club’s captain back then, described Gracia as savvy and “street smart”.

“He had the experience to realise that in the situation we were in, midway through a season, he couldn’t do anything radical,” Deeney wrote. “But he made important improvements nonetheless.”

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Ironically, given the results that led Leeds to sack Jesse Marsch this month, Gracia was not averse to employing his own form of the 4-2-2-2 system which Marsch worked on in his Red Bull days and used from time to time at Elland Road. Watford, with the Spaniard in place, moved away from the 3-4-3 formation favoured by Silva and used a mix of 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 and 4-4-2 formations in the opening phase of his tenure.

Gracia relied on a midfield base created by Capoue and Doucoure and would eventually deploy them in a double-six combination, with Pererya and Will Hughes in front of them. Pereya and Hughes often formed a narrow box midfield behind what was effectively a partnership of Deeney and Deulofeu up front. It could be deemed a 4-4-2 setup, but in the flesh, it often appeared more like 4-2-2-2.

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While Doucoure and Capoue were more than sitting anchors — encouraged to get forward and set off counter-attacks — Hughes, a left-footer on the right, and Pereyra, a right-footer on the left, albeit comfortable with both, were inverted and would tuck in and rotate. Gracia encouraged his full-backs to get forward and contribute offensively, especially if the midfield was narrow. At Leeds, Gracia will find players who lend themselves to similar tactics. The trick for him will be to make them less frenetic and less chaotic than they were under Marsch — and as a result, more effective. He has 15 games to go at but, all the same, not necessarily the time to make vast alterations.

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