With Leeds expected to announce the appointment of Uwe Rosler as their latest head coach, many fans are questioning where it leaves the club.
Having steered Leeds United to safety with games to spare in the Sky Bet Championship, Neil Redfearn fully expected to be offered a contract extension, and to take up the option of another year as head coach.
Most neutral observers would look at Redfearn’s record and think the same, given how he had used tactical nous to change formation, and with assistant Steve Thompson had installed backbone and a youthful verve to a side sat perilously close to the bottom three at the turn of the year.
The impending return of Massimo Cellino from his Football League-imposed ban had most Leeds fans questioning whether logic would be applied to the situation, however, particularly with Thompson suspended and players claiming injuries in dubious circumstances, during a chaotic end to the 2014/15 season.
It is fair to say that Cellino’s return has seen him stick to the script. To an outsider it appears that disposing of Neil Redfearn’s services – irrespective of the baffling communication breakdown that has surrounded it – is Leeds United’s equivalent of starting an argument in an empty room.
From a scenario of stability and core values being implemented in the first team squad, and with solid foundations from which to approach a new season for the first time in years, the club is back in the unknown, with expectations wound back and with allowances needing to be offered to a new coach in volatile surroundings. From a status of momentum, Leeds are back treading water.
This is not to say that Uwe Rosler would be a bad appointment. Rosler has a decent track record in English football with Brentford and Wigan and at least has the credentials that Dave Hockaday badly lacked, and the knowledge of the Championship that Darko Milanic never had. Whether he ‘gets’ Leeds United or is capable of handling the considerable weight of the position on the touchline at Elland Road quite like Neil Redfearn did, remains to be seen.
Most fans would be fully behind Rosler for as long as he remains Leeds United’s head coach, and he certainly would start from a better position than Hockaday did 12 months ago, both in terms of the squad strength and the force of support behind him that basic credibility brings. What many Leeds fans are disillusioned about is the reason why Rosler is there in the first place – assuming he is indeed appointed in the next few days – and how a seemingly stable and progressive situation with Redfearn has been allowed to unravel into another unseemly public mess.
Undoubtedly Redfearn was not the perfect coach and whether he could take Leeds United forward long term could be discussed long and hard. What he possessed were qualities that nurtured a positive vibe amongst the Elland Road crowd, and finally you could see the seeds of progress. And here it could be argued that Redfearn’s major fault was achieving success on the pitch without the beaming figure of Cellino slapping him on the back during jubilant post-match interviews. Seemingly, the price of success is that Cellino has to be central to it.
The question remains: what could Uwe Rosler bring to Leeds United that Neil Redfearn hadn’t already? Further questions are; what does Massimo Cellino want his head coach to actually achieve? And will any head coach ever be given a fair wind to achieve it?
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