These are the players that made up Leeds United’s bench
ahead of Tuesday night’s league game with Hull City; if anything should bring
home the current state of this football club, maybe it is a glance at this list
of names. While Jamie Ashdown appears on first impressions to be a very sound
back-up goalkeeper, concerns have to be raised about the quality of outfield
options; even during the darkest times of the League One era, I’m not convinced
that the club ever fielded a bench as weak as the one Neil Warnock had to
muster for this game.
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| Pretty clear message |
I would have to confess my first reaction upon discovering
who the substitutes were, was to work through the outfield players and conclude
the following: too old (and injury savaged), hopeless, too old, too old, too
young and too young; Ken Bates’ rhetoric – and that of those who follow his
lead on club station, Yorkshire Radio – about the manager possessing a strong,
competitive squad, both in terms of numbers and quality, exposed as an utter
fallacy. While some may wish to make a case for Poleon being deserving of a run
in the side, the truth is, teams that challenge for titles, automatic promotion
spots and even just play-off places do not typically find themselves relying on
a completely untried teenagers.
As it is, Neil Warnock is already finding himself leaning
heavily on another young prospect, who like Poleon, was not even on the fringes
of the first team squad at the end of last season. In Sam Byram, it appears
that the club have unearthed a new gem from the Academy, his fearless and
enthusiastic performances have so far been one of the highlights of the season;
but rather than being nurtured and eased into first team life – the new boy
looked after the experienced pros, it already seems that this young lad is having
a huge amount of responsibility placed upon his shoulders.
Instead of being allowed a degree of freedom, Byram along
with Rodolph Austin has suddenly found himself as one of the key men in the
engine room. With the wholly ineffective Luke Varney (and at times, the almost
equally ineffective Aidy White) on the left, and now the desperately off the
pace Michael Tonge (1 Premier League start in 4 seasons at Stoke) completing
the midfield quartet, the side find themselves relying on an 18 year-old and a
new to the English game, Jamaican who Warnock would ideally like to rest
following his international commitments.
With that in mind it is no wonder that Leeds are currently
struggling; while the results show on the surface that every league game has
been tight, with every victory and defeat being by the odd goal, in truth only
exceptional goalkeeping displays by Paddy Kenny in Cardiff and Blackpool
glossed over the huge dichotomy in class that was evident on both occasions.
While the opening day victory over Wolves offered encouragement, it was
achieved against a side that took over an hour to get into gear, and as much as
supporters were left to bemoan the referee’s role in denying Leeds a maximum
return against Blackburn, in truth, it was a game that the visitors should
really have killed stone dead before El Hadji Diouf provided the Whites with a
foothold in matters.
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| And we have to settle for Luke Varney... |
Last weekend, Craig Bellamy left the bench to set Cardiff on
the way to victory, then minutes later, Neil Warnock saw his “Number 1 summer
target”, Nicky Maynard, win the penalty that condemned his side to defeat.
Blackburn had given a debut to £8m Jordan Rhodes the Saturday before; Blackpool
were able to field Tom Ince and then bring Matt Phillips off the bench to turn
victory from the jaws of defeat at Bloomfield Road…Warnock is expected to
compete with a budget (now completed exhausted) that has allowed him to set his
aspirations no higher than Andy Gray and Luke Varney.
The fact is, Leeds United are a club going nowhere, its fan
base left with nothing more to do than to pray for the moment that they can
once again start to go somewhere. What is clear is that will not happen without
a change of regime: new owners with a new philosophy of putting football first
and wholly willing to back their vision with financial muscle. Even as things
stand, Leeds United should be a much more competitive outfit, but an inhibitive
wage structure and player budget, put in place so as to prioritise building
projects, serves to ensure they cannot even now hope to compete for the cream
of the emergency loan market.
Add to this equation, the losses to injury of Paul Green and
David Norris from the midfield, the experienced Adam Drury at left-back and
most crucially, the confirmed absence of Ross McCormack for up to 2 months and
Leeds suddenly have the look of a bottom 6 outfit.
Still though the chairman chooses to preach to those naïve enough
to swallow his increasingly inconsistent and nonsensical programme notes, his
problem now however, is that he finds himself writing sermons to an
increasingly small congregation of believers. Too many times has Ken Bates
cried wolf, too often has he insisted that his is the way and then emphatically
failed to deliver.
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| Independent thinking |
The pre-match protest outside the East Stand by the same “morons”
Bates is at pains to dismiss, week upon week as being of no concern to him was essentially
just another simple reiteration of discontentment amongst what is (contrary to
opinion) a largely articulate and well informed hardcore; while the ingeniously
placed LUST advertisement on the lamp post outside the executive entrance,
merely another PR masterstroke by an organisation that offers to supporters,
the accountability and communication, never afforded from those running the
club. Such actions are nothing new, albeit the clustering of supporters in the
South Stand for the game displayed a more organised element of independent
protest, somewhat necessitated by the anguish of nearly four months of playing
the takeover waiting game.
None of these actions are likely to have concerned Bates
more than they might normally do so, however, what may do was the verdict of
the wider fan base, reflected in the attendance. Barely 12 months on from the
last Elland Road encounter with Hull – which was incidentally another early
season Tuesday night game, played against a similar backdrop of discontent of
acrimony following a pitiful summer of investment in the playing staff – the gate
had dropped from 22,363 to 19,750; a fall of over 2,600. Bearing in mind that
the Hull City fans travelled in greater numbers this time and the fact that this season’s game was deemed ‘Category B’,
meaning that adult tickets were in general, £5 cheaper, this represents a
continuing trend of support sharply falling away – even allowing for more
player sales (and who’s already wondering whether Lees, Byram or McCormack will
still be here in February, should Bates remain?); it seems Bates can do little
to sustain his tenure with income dwindling so drastically and future season
ticket sales mortgaged against the cost of the East Stand redevelopment work.
Surely an end is in sight?
In the meantime, the action on the pitch continues to
accurately reflect the lack of ambition shown off it. True to work ethic that
Neil Warnock has installed, the side started quickly against the Tigers,
dominating the opening 20 minutes and took a well-deserved lead from the
penalty spot; Becchio stroking home following a trip on Diouf. But, as things
tend to go at times like these, one mistake was all that was needed to let the opposition
back in, the hugely ineffectual Tonge tamely rolling the ball left from the
edge of his own area, rather than taking the no nonsense option of launching it
upfield or into the stand, allowing the rather more impressive Hull loanee,
Elmohamady (55 starts in 2 years at the Stadium of Light) to run on to the
loose ball and smash it home from 20 yards. From that moment, Hull were in the
ascendancy; Leeds, having created a number of problems by getting the ball
forward quickly to Diouf and Becchio, who’d been afforded the luxury of staying
up front due to Steve Bruce’s decision to opt to play three centre backs,
suddenly found themselves chasing shadows; Austin and Byram, essentially
carrying Varney and Tonge were never in with a chance against a 5-man midfield.
Six minutes on and Tom Lees lost Faye, free header, 2-1.
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| 2-1 |
For the second consecutive home game, Leeds were there for
the taking, but rather like Blackburn, the visitors seemed to lack the killer
instinct to press on and finish off their opponents. While Blackburn had fallen
apart following Diouf’s goal, Hull simply set the height of their ambitions at
holding up the game at every opportunity, taking the sting out of any token
momentum Leeds could muster – there wasn’t much.
Once behind, Leeds in general lacked creativity, players who
could pick passes and a sense of positivity, only Diouf could oblige on all
three counts, Austin and Byram on the latter. Most troubling was the complete
and utter lack of pace in all areas of the pitch; indeed Aidy White, the only
starting player renown for pace appears so incapable of using it to any
constructive purpose, he may as well not have it.
Nothing emphasised the deficiency more than the introduction
of Dominic Poleon just after the hour mark; his first two contributions were to
run at players, and the team, suddenly afforded a new dimension picked up the
tempo. Sadly it didn’t last as 15 minutes from time a corner for the home side
turned into a break for the visitors, Leeds were hopelessly stretched at the
back and Koren was able to steal in unmarked at the back post, rounding off the
sort of fleet footed attack Leeds are just incapable of, to tuck in the third
and seal the points.
Andy Gray grabbed a late second for Leeds as the referee’s
assistant was preparing to deliver the news of there being 5 minutes stoppage
time; that brought a brief surge of excitement but never looked like being the
pre-cursor for a dramatic equaliser.
On paper, 3-2 looks like a narrow defeat, but nobody was
fooled. Unless the club comes under new ownership very soon, a repeat of last
season where the team effectively found itself anchored in mid-table with
nothing to play for by March may yet prove to be more aspirational than we dare
contemplate.
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