Calmness was the critical impact Michael Skubala made on a Leeds United team which was reeling from the part it played in Jesse Marsch’s sacking. The under-21 boss was appointed on a caretaker basis last week and oversaw two promising performances against Manchester United.
Max Wober spoke to the media on Thursday and opened up for the first time on the impact Skubala has made at Thorp Arch since being drafted in. The Austrian defender admits there was a lot of pressure sitting on top of the squad in the aftermath of Marsch’s sacking.
This was a team which was holding itself accountable for performances on the field which did not prove to be good enough to keep the American in a job. The squad was in flux.
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“He just tried to bring some calmness to the team because, of course, always when there's a change of coaches, the whole team is in a certain point where they don't know what's going to happen, who's going to be the coach,” he said. “There’s a lot of media pressure, a lot of pressure from the fans and also, as a player you know, you messed up because we didn't play good enough to keep the coach, so we are also part of that."
The team felt an immediate impact from Skubala’s methods and in the tweaks he had suggested he was going to make in his press conference. Wober felt the team saw clarity from the caretaker in how he wanted them to play, especially in how they were told to make best use of their attacking talents.
“In the two Manchester games, we performed well,” he said. "He just tried to bring in some basics.
“He tried to play really compact in the defence and then play with more width and get Willy [Gnonto] and Cree [Summerville] more into the game, more into one-against-ones and it worked out pretty well.”
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