The Most Important Match of McDermott's Career

Article by Jeremy Taylor

It's been a bad Christmas for Brian McDermott and things are not about to get any easier. A particularly challenging fixture now faces him and his players and as was the case with the diabolical horror show at Hillsborough last weekend, it will be played out in front of Sky’s cameras and broadcast across the globe.

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Unlike last weekend though, this time the tormentors are not a side struggling near the bottom of the league with a caretaker manager in charge but instead the form team in the division, leading the pack as they march ominously to the Championship title. Not exactly an enviable position for McDermott to be in given the past two weeks he’s had to endure.

As I’ve repeatedly said, no matter what happens on Saturday against Leicester (within reason of course), he will not lose his job. He’s done too much good behind the scenes for that to happen. Plus, the fact that Leeds were on fire only a couple of months ago with Ross McCormack scoring for fun proves that somewhere, somehow, we can perform in this league. Brian and his team just need to figure out what went wrong and fix it, quickly.

There are too many questions being asked amongst the Elland Road faithful right now to know where to start, but there are two distinct areas of concern; the boardroom and the dressing room.

Starting with the boardroom, nothing spreads the dark, disturbing tones of cynicism and negativity throughout the Leeds United fan base more than misleading statements and a general smoke-and-mirrors style output of information. The Elland Road faithful have suffered it by the bucket load over the past decade and while the vast majority of them recognise the welcome relief that GFH and their associates have brought to the club, many will be growing increasingly agitated and slowly beginning to shuffle over to the ranting, raving conspiracy theorists that make up the minority.

The fact that it’s mid-January and we are still waiting on the FA ‘rubber stamping’ the proposed take over by Sports Capital doesn’t sit well. Unless the keeper of this all powerful ‘rubber stamp’ has failed to return from their Christmas break then there is obviously something else holding everything up. The longer this drags on the more intense the feeling of anger will become with the fans, and that is the last thing the team needs.

In terms of the dressing room, there could be a book written on what is or isn’t happening as far as performances on the pitch go. Leeds United have gone from a dynamic and attack minded team to a collective of nervous, frightened footballers who can barely pass to each other – all in the space of a few weeks.

Rochdale aside (as many good teams have come unstuck in the FA cup to lower opposition), the performance at Hillsborough was possibly the worst ever seen as claimed by many Leeds fans on social networks. The first goal illustrated this perfectly as the entire Leeds defence went scrambling towards the ball on the edge of the box, leaving three Wednesday players stood unmarked, seemingly bemused at their luck, literally queueing up to score. It was worse than pub team standard, it was playground standard. At an all girls school.

Immediately after last weekend’s game, McDermott revealed that the squad would be at Thorpe Arch the following morning for an emergency summit. Any fly on that meeting room wall would have had an entertaining morning without a doubt. Meanwhile, the rest of us can only guess at what was said.

The aftermath though has thrown up a bold but seemingly sensible decision to remove the captaincy from Austin and hand it to McCormack. While not exactly a positive step, no-one can argue that Austin’s recent performances have been nothing short of shocking, and when the chips were down on Saturday he looked just as likely to sit cross legged behind the goal and cry as to take the game by the scruff of its neck. If Austin’s performances suddenly improve then it will prove a master stroke; until you question why he got it in the first place. A combative and passionate midfielder he is (or at least was), but a leader?

So, back to looking forward. Saturday. Elland Road. Leicester City. Gulp.

McDermott is truly at a monumental cross roads now.

Win the game and he’ll take a big step back away from the cliff. The players will perk up and maybe even look forward with confidence to the following game.

Lose it and the hole deepens and it suddenly becomes a very long ten days until we entertain Ipswich.

Right now though, I suspect that the performance is more important than the result to McDermott. He’ll want to see his players pass the ball, run with the ball, keep their positions and tackle the ball when opposition players run towards them. Like he said, "back to basics". We may even see a shot or two at goal. After all, the eyes of the world are on us, again.

@jezaldinho

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