Former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan has not held back with his assessment of Leeds United's Premier League campaign. The ex-Eagles chief has taken aim at Andrea Radrizzani for his approach to hiring and firing managers and has questioned the finances behind the recent appointment of Sam Allardyce.
Jordan wrote in his Daily Mail column: "Leeds have been a rudderless ship, with everyone seemingly pulling in different directions and distracted by different agendas. Maybe going down will clear up this mess because what has been going on is as clear as mud.
"So while this is nothing like the s*** storm Leeds faced back in 2004, they have turned themselves into a self-inflicted disaster zone. From allowing Bielsa to go on too long when his approach had run its race, to appointing Jesse Marsch on the basis that what worked in the uncompetitive leagues of Germany and Austria would work in the Premier League.
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"Bielsa’s legacy probably needed to be exorcised but it wasn’t. They needed to change the team and the way they played because it had run its course but they brought in Marsch, who, although probably more tactically proficient than people gave him credit for, was all platitudes.
"He smacked to me of someone wishing things were so rather than it actually being so. I was always a naysayer about Marsch’s appointment, but it was soon clear to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention that he wasn’t the right man for the job.
"It was inevitable he was going to go, but rather than sacking him before the World Cup as they should have done and replacing him with Sean Dyche, who would have more than likely jumped at the opportunity, Leeds displayed no coherence or logic, dithered, and allowed Marsch to spend big in January — including a club record signing who has barely played — before finally making a decision and booting him out when the transfer window closed.
"Then it was pinning the tail on the donkey time and they ended up with Javi Gracia because they couldn’t find anyone else. They might as well have gone for Big Sam Allardyce there and then.
"He probably would have kept them up through sheer force of personality, but this back-of-the-fag-packet approach to hiring and firing managers has led us to this point. The appointment of Allardyce also shows the profligacy and sheer unadulterated waste that football is prepared to stomach. We’re talking about a ghoulish amount of money here.
"Without wishing to be mean-spirited, handing Allardyce £500,000 for four games, or the best part of £3million if he keeps them up, was ugly and unedifying, although the preservation of £100m-plus that survival brings would be justification enough I guess!
"How did intellectually capable, talented people running the club manage to get themselves into a position where the best they can do is chuck millions at a manager, who, if we’re being brutal, can point to his most recent achievement as getting West Brom relegated?"
Leeds head to Tottenham Hotspur on the final day of the season knowing anything less than a win would result in Championship football next season. "It’s yet another example of the casino finances of football," Jordan added. "Ultimately, you can’t run a football club trying to compete in the Premier League while trying to sell it, especially when the sale is conditional upon Leeds staying in the division.
"It sparked a plethora of bad decisions and meant there were too many different agendas about who was bought, who was sold and when. Rumours abounded that Radrizzani wanted to sell players in January who the prospective new owners wanted to keep.
"With relegation seemingly now inevitable, Radrizzani has either got to concentrate on regrouping and pushing the club back into position, or the Americans take over at a discounted price. But you can’t keep having mixed messages from on high.
"Having spent time with Radrizzani at the World Cup in Qatar, I have to say he is not the most endearing of fellas. I have great admiration for his acumen in the media world, but he struck me as arrogant, off-hand and slightly away with himself. He was like a marginally more sophisticated version of former QPR owner Flavio Briatore. He had the old ‘look at me, I’ve just arrived in the room’ mentality.
"That sort of attitude might be why deals have been so difficult to conclude for Leeds and why mixed messages have been sent out at this dysfunctional, incohesive club, because leadership has to start at the top.
"In the end, if you lack coherent thinking in your boardroom you will lack it in your dugout and on the pitch, ending in the kind of mess that Leeds now find themselves in."
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