New Leeds United owner Andrea Radrizzani has overseen a troubled 2018.
What a difference a year makes.
This time a year ago Andrea Radrizzani was being heralded as Leeds United’s fresh hope, a chance to finally cut ties from the Massimo Cellino regime.
He did just that, buying out Cellino and taking full ownership of the club.
Radrizzani scored a major win before the season started, by managing to buy back stadium Elland Road in the space of two months, something Massimo Cellino did not manage to do in three years.
Cellino and Radrizzani are both Italian, but that was where the similarities seemed to end.
Cellino was seen as old school, an owner who would shoot from the hip, hire and fire and make impetuous decisions which would often court controversy.
Radrizzani is younger, slicker, better connected, and was seen as measured in his approach.
In recent months that facade has slipped, and more similarities than expected have become clear.
Like Cellino before him, Radrizzani has been let down by his trust of in a director of football who has bought players ill suited for the Championship; for Nicola Salerno see Victor Orta.
Radrizzani’s patience with manager Thomas Christiansen ran out earlier this year, and he told the Yorkshire Evening Post he wanted to fire him sooner; a quote right out of the Cellino playbook.
In midweek Radrizzani went ‘full Cellino’, blasting the opposition’s financial strategy mid-game with his team losing 3-0.
Cellino did not have Twitter, which was just as well, as you can only imagine the controversy he would have caused. Radrizzani opened a window in midweek to what it would have been like if he did.
With Leeds slipped to 13th place, they are back to the mid-table mediocrity they inhabited for much of the Cellino reign.
Radrizzani is not Cellino, and there is reason for Leeds fans to be hopeful that their new owner will go on to lead them to the promised land of the Premier League.
It just won’t be this season, and Radrizzani is causing concern by showing greater similarity to Cellino than first imagined.
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