Are Things Beginning to Take Shape at Leeds United?

Article by Jeremy Taylor @jezaldinho

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While not a great deal has changed over the past week in terms of squad building, the mood seems to have improved significantly at Elland Road and it can’t all be down to a 2-1 win at Swindon Town.

Sure, winning a football match does wonders for morale, and all the signs from that game point to a squad that’s beginning to understand each other, find some rhythm and become a ‘team’.

But that’s what pre-season is all about isn’t it. And, without being disrespectful, it was Swindon not Real Madrid, and we needed a penalty to win; but nevertheless the win seems to have been just the tonic, especially for Dave Hockaday.

New players have come in and unlike years gone by, these lads are not familiar names belonging to players with CV’s as long as an M62 traffic jam. They are complete mysteries, delivering both excitement and nervousness in equal measure. The fear of the unknown blended with the baseless assumption that former Italian U21’s must have something about them.

It still remains to be seen of course, but they were never likely to turn up and set the place alight immediately. The reality was that they might show glimpses of ability such as a nice touch here and there, some clever movement or the odd piece of skill. Exactly the sort of things that Bianchi & Doukara displayed at Swindon, and the effect was immediate.

All it takes is a glimpse of decent football and the fans can get excited; remembering what good football actually looks like from Leeds United, so starved of it were we for most of last season.

We can also get excited that these players are young, fit and happy to be at Leeds; all ingredients that when combined with some actual ability make for a potent recipe for good times to come at Elland Road.

In terms of who else is coming in, things have dragged on with Viviani, whom there is no doubt is a talent.

Then there’s the growing story about AC Milan’s young hotshot Benedicic being on the verge of joining the ranks.

Neither has quite made it over the line though. What these situations point to, including the more transparent negotiations for the young Chesterfield defender Cooper, is that Cellino isn’t an easy man to do business with; but in a good way. The back and forth suggests that Massimo will only accept things on his own terms, terms that are for the best of Leeds United.

The official Viviani story was that he did a U-turn after watching the poor display at Mansfield. However, the fact that his representatives were rather keen to carry on discussions after Cellino had publically said the deal was dead suggests it might not have been the case.

Milan finally agreed to (after initially refusing) the loan of Benedicic, with the player going so far as to publicly state how excited he is to be joining Leeds and breaking into the first team, only for the deal to seemingly stall because (apparently) there is a disagreement as to whether an option to eventually sign the player is to be included in the deal.

Again, this points to Cellino having a ‘my way or the highway’ attitude to player recruitment; something that is actually rather reassuring.

Sense tells you that these deals will probably be done and that it’s all just posturing and financial chessboxing.

It’s also encouraging in the sense that, if these players were not of significant value to their clubs then they wouldn’t care. They’d just loan them out and forget about it. We’re obviously talking about players that their parent clubs maintain an interest in.

Assuming that either or both players do join Leeds United then suddenly we could be faced with something that hasn’t been seen at Elland Road for a good while.

We could actually have a wealth of creative midfielders! Barring the rare glimpse of thrust from Luke Murphy, we were completely bereft of them last season and now could potentially have up to five (including the ‘back in from the cold’ starlet Chris Dawson).

What about the other positions?

Tom Lees has joined Sheffield Wednesday and most Leeds fans recognise it as the right move for both parties. But in turn this has further weakened the weakest part of the team.

Surely this means that Cooper is expected to join us, but who else is lined up? We’re still crying out for a commanding centre-back to partner the capable Jason Pearce. Surely Salerno has something up his sleeve here? It’s far too obvious a problem for it to be missed.

Then there’s the gaping hole where McCormack once was. Unless Dave Hockaday is planning to implement a Catalan style total-football whereby everyone is a striker, we still need someone to replace the 20+ goals that Ross brought.

The Nile Ranger story has resurfaced again and this is hardly an exciting development. He scored the odd goal for the Magpies and looked decent enough at Championship level, but the last thing Leeds United need is another attention seeking bad-boy who cannot help but get his collar felt every few weeks for some sort of misdemeanour.

Again, Salerno MUST have something up his sleeve here, but who could it be?

There’s a chap called Robert Aquafresca that’s been mentioned, or ‘Robbie Freshwater’ if you take the Aston Villa approach of translation (Antonio Luna = Tony Moon).

Or, more familiar for some, the available Danny Graham has been linked; a player with undoubted quality but with an unfortunate knack of being unable to score a goal when anyone’s watching.

Could Elland Road be the place for him to re-discover how to hit the back of the net in front of a crowd? Is he the answer to what we need? Could be…

Back to the broader point though and the mood of the club seems to be improving as the days roll on. Is it that fans are slowly warming to Dave Hockaday?

Of course the proof is entirely in the pudding where this is concerned and it’s safe to say that the fate of the current coach rests entirely on the first five games of the season.

Play well and get three points at Millwall and suddenly the support Hockaday will receive will be like a tidal wave, carrying him and the team along.

But play badly and lose and it will instead feel like a hurricane at his door. The negative momentum of successive losses will make it very difficult for Cellino not to scratch his itchy trigger-finger and put the coach out of his increasing misery.

Whatever happens though, Cellino needs to be applauded for his approach and the way he’s gone about business so far. The club feels stable and ubiquitous in its vision. We have money to spend (if we ever actually spend it) and we’re being heavily linked with talents from some of Europe’s top teams. When was the last time we could say that?

Let’s hope that we continue to improve against Dundee and the well of positivity can only grow.

The value of a win against Millwall to the club as a whole cannot be overestimated. Three points would be nice too.

@jezaldinho

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