Why Leeds Would Be DUMB To Appoint This Manager!

Welcome to The Talking Point, ladies and gentlemen, the show where we bring you guys into the studio to talk about the biggest talking points from around the world of football. Of course, Christopher Hamill is joining us today. How are you doing? Of course. You say that like this was planned. He's grabbed me on the way out of the office to talk about Ansh Bostakoglu. Other than that, I'm brilliant. How are you? Very well, thank you. Very well. It doesn't matter about us, though, because we have Ellis Plassen here from Away Days. How are you doing, buddy? I'm very good. How are you guys doing? Very well. Very well. Now, of course, we've got you here to talk about Leeds United, because the big news is that Jesse Marsh has been sacked after just under a year in charge of Leeds. Now, the American took over Leeds in late February 2022, with the club in 16th place in the Premier League, before helping to keep them in the Premier League with a 17th place finish last season. Now, he leads with Leeds in 17th place as well. Level on points with Everton, who are in 18th after that shock win against Arsenal, and just three above Southampton, who are in 20th. Now, he was obviously dismissed after his 1-0 loss to Nottingham Forest on Sunday. Leeds have not won a game in over three months now, and have won just four matches in the Premier League this season. Ellis, firstly, as a Leeds fan, speak from the heart here. How do you feel? How do you feel about his time in charge? How do you feel about him being dismissed? Was it the right decision, or would you have liked to maybe see him stay a little bit longer? Yeah, I feel like you can't do a talk about Marsh without... And it really annoys other people. You can't not mention Bielsa, because the way he was brought in was kind of like through the back door almost. We never really got to say bye to Bielsa, and I think that kind of hurt Leeds fans in general as well. It was an odd one, and I actually think it did hinder Marsh eventually. I always think Bielsa's successor, especially in the way it happened, was always going to struggle massively, and he did keep us up last season. Marsh is a lovely guy, and I think he clearly cared about the city, clearly wanted to succeed, and he clearly backed himself. But the reality is we beat Norwich in the last second. Norwich were terrible. We then won away at Wolves after being 2-0 down because they went down to 10 men. And then the other win, Brentford had nine men. So realistically, it wasn't really a stark improvement if you look at the facts of the games we actually won. And then moving on to this season, there's been moments that we beat... The performance against Chelsea was phenomenal. The performance against Liverpool away was great. And there's been flashes, but the reality is we've had 11 points in the last 51. He should have went when we lost at home to Fulham. He was then very lucky we followed it up with a win away at Liverpool. But it's not been good enough. It's been every week, myself and the consensus of Leeds fans was we knew we were going to lose that game against Forest. You go into it, and you try to be as positive as possible, but you see it in the body language of the players. When that goal goes in, their heads just drop like it was done. It's been done for a while. And yeah, it's never quite clicked. Although I really liked him as a person, it just hasn't worked. Is there any confusion as well over the fact that they've done it now, considering they spent £70m in January on transfers? For players who felt like they fitted his system and were players that he wanted, do you feel a little bit confused at all by that? Yeah, the biggest confusion is the fact he's brought in Chris Armas two weeks ago. He was asked to bring someone into his backroom staff two weeks ago, who is now still there, who surely isn't going to be part of the successor. So that's really weird. I think maybe they felt it was needed to get someone like McKennie in. We needed him there still, which I don't think is the case at all. I think McKennie would have came, whatever. So yeah, it is confusing. But I do feel like the board and Raja Razani and Orta, whoever the manager was, they would have signalled these targets. And it's why Orta and Bielsa ended up batting heads, is because Orta had very specific players he would bring to Bielsa and Bielsa wouldn't want them. So I imagine whoever was in charge would have took the players. Interesting. I mean, Chris, how do you feel Leeds' performance this season has been represented? Do you kind of feel like they have maybe been a little bit unfortunate? Obviously, they've tried to play progressive, fun football. They've not necessarily gone down the Sean Dyche route of how he got the Everton win, which is no discredit to him, what a win that was. How do you feel about Leeds and Marsh's time together? Nothing significant to add. Other than that, I think they are probably more middling by their underlying numbers than their current position in the league table suggests. I think them and West Ham, probably the biggest discrepancy between reality and the performances that they're putting in. David Moyes has been narrowly escaping the boot as well, owing to an uptick in form in recent weeks. But I listened to an interesting piece by John McKenzie of Tifo on the way in, and he was sort of giving extra context behind their middling, like I said, expected goals for. And yeah, he did a deeper dive into it. And Leeds this season have only been really proficient in attack when they've been behind. So it's been largely owing to game state rather than dominating games, rather than penning teams in with that helter-skelter press that we saw under Bielsa. So it has started to reek of desperation. And it feels like the trajectory has been downwards for a little while now. I do think there is three or four worse sides in the Premier League, and that's why I thought Marsh might survive a little bit longer. But like Ellis said, if the performance is that lallister against a team like Forest, something had to be done, I guess. I think you've got to make a decision as well once Everton has brought in their manager in Sean Dyche, and when you're seeing the likes of Lopetegui move to Wolves when they were there, you don't want to make the decision too late and miss out on all the potential. I think that's a really good point, because I think this action has been taken owing to how proactive other teams have been around them. Like Bournemouth had a really good January, Southampton had a really good January, but their manager seems hell-bent on imploding right now. Everton are going to be much improved under Sean Dyche. So unfortunately for him, the hierarchies of those other clubs took action as well. If they were a little bit more inactive, like I said, then maybe he would have been given a bit more bandwidth. But that is a really good point, because I think Wolves are only going to get better Nottingham Forest are probably outperforming their underlying numbers at current, but might have done enough at this point to narrowly avoid relegation. There's not many other teams that were in the same sort of free-fall as Leeds. I think we forget as well how Villa were as well before Emery came in too. Okay then, let's move on to the next section, where we're going to look and analyse a few managers who could possibly be taking the seat at Ellen Road, or the bucket, I should say. And that's Carlos Corberán. Now he coached the under-21 side whilst Bielsa was at Leeds, and was also an assistant coach to him as well. He's been much admired by Bielsa. And Bielsa also once said that he values his opinion on football more than his own, which is very, very impressive. He also took Huddersfield to the Championship play-off final last season. They're now, since he's left, in 22nd place in the Championship. He then moved to Olympiacos. He was fired within two weeks after that, but has now got the job at West Brom. He's been manager of them since October and has been doing a very good job. When he took over, they were second from bottom after 16 games. And now after 29 games, they're in the play-off places. Ellis, Pochettino is the fourth favourite. Is there any part of you that believes Leeds can coax him to Ellen Road? Or is that just pie-in-the-sky stuff? I think it's pie-in-the-sky. I feel like Conte is going to leave Spurs at the end of the season and he goes back. It would be stupid for Pochettino to take our job. I don't see the benefit in it for him. I'd love it. But same thing, I never thought Bielsa would come and manage us in the Championship. So you never know. But logically, I don't think a manager with a stock as high as his, because his stock does still feel like it's high, would come to Leeds. Interesting. I mean, Poch, I think at this point, is a question for any club to be going to him. Another one that was linked to you as well was the return of Bielsa. Which, to be honest, in the world of Bielsa, feels like something that he could do, to be quite honest, in a return there. Bridges have probably been burned there. Obviously, he was sacked after four consecutive losses. As a fan, would you be keen for that? Or do you think you need to move on from that era of Leeds? Obviously, it was an amazing period. It was so, so successful. Got you back to the Premier League. Brilliant memories. But surely having him come back doesn't feel like the right step. Yeah, no. I feel like I definitely would want it. But you know, obviously, my head roll and my heart rate. Yeah, yeah. Long term, we need to move on. We need to move on now. Because Bielsa's name was being sung when Martial was in charge. I feel like now, whoever comes in charge, we can finally move on. And it's about finding that long-term successor now. The only thing that there is still there is Woody kept us up. And we'll never know. It didn't really get much better under Martial. Obviously, we had so many injuries and Bielsa left, which was like the whole season. But Phillips, Bamford, Cooper were gone, our spine for the whole season pretty much. So no, I think we need to move on as much as it hurts. It's like if you start talking to your ex again, you know, you probably logically need to move on. But the heart is still there a bit. I love that analogy. That's amazing. Obviously, as well, Bielsa did the most Bielsa thing ever when asked to go join Everton and say, I'll do the youth team for the rest of this season and then become permanent manager in the summer, which is amazing. It's like an enigma in football. It is one of my favourite things. We need to talk about the Vallecano manager, Andoni Iriola, who also has links to Bielsa. It kind of feels like anybody that is a manager and has some sort of a link to Bielsa is in with the running here. Now, he was the captain for Bielsa's brilliant athletic club side that reached the Europa League final back in 2012. Now, he is the manager of Vallecano, who are fifth in La Liga. They're just three points behind Atletico Madrid, and they're doing all that on an extremely limited budget. Now, he was actually asked about the possibility of moving to Ellum Road and said a very Bielsa kind of statement by saying, football belongs to the footballers. We are not that important. The players make us look better, and I'm lucky to have the players who are showing their level. Now, look, Ellis, I'm not going to put you under the bus here and say, do you know loads about him? It's very, very tough at the moment with all the managers that are kind of being linked. With him, but are you maybe a little bit concerned that all the guys being linked have that Bielsa link in some way, shape or form? Or do you feel like you do need to have a manager is going to be progressive and obviously want to play that kind of football? And so maybe that link is a good thing. I think it's a good link. I think it's interesting to know whether, would you leave being fifth in La Liga at this point to come to us? It's a hard sell. It's interesting how many Leeds fans are now became experts in Vallecano. We've appeared out of nowhere, but I can't say I've watched any Vallecano games, I'll be honest, but I see success and I've seen a lot of people who know more about football than me, covering how well they've played, the type of football they play. Frankly, it's not too dissimilar from what Marsh wanted to play, but actually uses width. Whereas like Marsh. Yeah, very central. Very central because he said in an interview, we need to be there. That's where the goal is, which is the worst thing anyone has ever said in an interview. Yeah, I would like it. Would he move to us right now? Do I know enough about him? Probably not. But if you can take a team with no budget to fifth in La Liga, I think you're probably good enough to be the manager of a team in 17th. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Super League is possibly already here, that being the Premier League. Now let's go to you, Chris. Half the reason I got you onto here, and look, you shake your head. You've been pitching him for a big job. A big, big job. No, no, no. For a while now. I've said he's done a big job. He can stay exactly where he is, my friend, because he is a superstar manager. Talk to me about who he is. We're talking about Andre Prostokoglou, who is currently, well, he was second favourite this morning. He's tumbled to fifth favourite for reasons unknown. But I mean, he's done an absolutely superb job at Celtic. Obviously, rebuilt the side to a ridiculous degree. The turnover in personnel, I think most Celtic fans would have given him a year before they demanded any level of success, owing to just how many new transfers came in and owing to what sort of collection of players they were and how far afield they came from. But I mean, I look at Leeds right now and we've spoke about what sort of side they are stylistically. We've touched about the skill sets of some of their personnel already, and it's not necessarily geared towards Prostokoglou's style of play, but that's not to say he couldn't transform them in a short space of time. So, you know, conversely to Jesse Mosh, Ellis already pointed out, the American liked to play without width or just his full backs covering them in wide areas. That obviously led to them being quite porous in those areas. But yeah, it was that counterattacking, Red Bull style of let's cause, well, organised chaos in the centre of the pitch and hope we're the beneficiaries of that. Whereas Ange Prostokoglou is, I wouldn't say traditional by comparison, but loves the 4-3-3. That's because he loves his wingers. He loves really skilful guys in wide positions or guys who are fast, strong, physically speaking, who can go up against the full back one-on-one and create high value opportunities in that way. That's why he spent so much money bringing Jotta from Benfica to Celtic. We spent upwards of £6-7 million on him. And thank God we had an option to buy Baked in there because he would have cost a lot more otherwise. And that's why he brought in Lila Bardo on the right-hand side. He needs fast, dangerous, skilful guys in wide areas. And I mean, Jack Harrison is that. That's not to say that, I mean, it escaped me, who would sort of play on the other side. Yonto as well. Yonto, yeah. I mean, Aronson plays down the centre, doesn't he, as well. I mean, it would be a strange switch-up, let's say, for the rest of the squad, who have desperately been trying to grasp this aforementioned Red Bull style of football. I mean, that's not to say Pasterkogli doesn't demand a certain amount of presence in the centre of the pitch. It's been well documented that his full backs come inside an awful lot. That's how he cuts out, I mean, he packs the middle of the pitch in order to sort of minimise danger and turnover. I just think, fundamentally, Pasterkogli, he strikes me as a very, very principled man. I think he spoke a lot about the process. He spoke a lot about more to come from Celtic. I think he wants a second run at the Champions League. Of course, if Celtic win the league, which they look nailed on favourites to do, they waltz straight into the Champions League group stages. Again, you know what? If he wins three league titles on the bounce, and shows a much improved Celtic side in the Champions League group stage, I think then we can start talking about these sorts of moves. Do you think that he actually could be doing, and no offence to Ellis here, better than maybe the situation that Leeds are in right now? I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, if Celtic carried on improving in the way that they are, that he was offered a chance to manage a side, certainly in a better position, a lot more solid position in the Premier League table. Leeds, obviously, huge club, and Leeds demand someone with that, or they take to Leeds fans, gravitate towards people with that cult of personality. He does have a personality at heart. A strong personality, and people like to, you know, at Leeds, like to latch onto that, don't they? And use it as a sort of, well, hope it becomes emblematic of their club. So, I think personality-wise, right fit, wonderful football on the eye, great sort of eye for talent. I don't know how he would be operating on the sort of budget that Leeds have displayed in recent times, or the amounts they've been willing to spend. That'd be a new thing for him, most certainly. But I think it's probably 18 months too soon for him. I think he'll want another crack at the Champions League whip. Yeah, in particular, yeah. Okay, that's a very emphatic answer. Thank you. You got emotional in that, it's nice to see. And breathe. Well, let's also touch upon quickly one final manager before we then get Ellis's opinion on who his numero uno is. And that is also Ralph Hasenhutl, who's been linked to the side. Now, obviously, he was manager of Southampton for over 170 games. He won 59 of them. Victor Orser, as we mentioned earlier about Jesse Marsh, is a huge fan of that Red Bull system, which is infused in Hasenhutl. Now, it might be a little bit hard with Hasenhutl, who obviously was sacked in November as he's supposedly closer to joining Bundesliga side Hoffenheim at the moment than coming back to the Premier League. But who knows? Money talks, doesn't it? And that could be, I think, personally, I think that could be a pretty smart move. I've always really liked Hasenhutl. But Ellis, let's go back to you, my friend. If you had to pick one of these managers or maybe another manager that you've heard of or you like the sound of, who would it be? I think just based on what I've seen of the Corberan, although I said it wasn't your first choice as well, so maybe Uriola. I don't know enough about him, right? So I think logically, Uriola probably says no and we go for Corberan is what I imagine will happen. I know Phil Hay, our main journalist, has tweeted Uriola's name several times. So maybe we're trying to discuss with him. I know everyone is in for the job currently. Apparently everyone on our shortlist is in a job which rolls out Hasenhutl. So I also imagine just such an imposter copy won't happen. So I think it will be Corberan or Uriola. Good. Keep your hands off. Yeah. Well, we do, like you said about the width quickly, like our width is great. We've got Sinisterra, Nyonto, Harrison, like all can play wide. Somerville is really exciting as well. Even Joe Gallart who we've got on loan is best off. Rodrigo's played wide at times, hasn't he as well? Completely forgot about Sinisterra, yeah. It's good he's been injured, but he's going to be like a new, well, he'd hope he'd be like a new signing, but he didn't look at it in his forest. But we'll see. But yeah, Uriola, why not? Let's go for it, why not? I mean, it's interesting you mentioned as well about Corberan because obviously West Brom are in a situation where they are in debt. They're in £40 million of debt and supposedly if he was to leave at this point in time, a payout would be needed. But Ellis, thank you so much for talking to us about Leeds. I really appreciate you coming on. If people at home want to check you out, where can they go? Oh yeah, it's Away Days on YouTube. That's probably the best place to find me two times a week, talking waffle. Amazing, amazing. We'll put you guys in, we'll put you in the description below. Thank you, Chris, for joining me as well. You're welcome. If you guys at home want to see more Football Daily content, then click on screen right now. Let us know who you think should be in charge for Leeds for the rest of the season in the comments below. If you've enjoyed the video, like it. And as always, guys, don't forget to subscribe to Football Daily.