Thomas Frank has never been shy in making provocative comments on Leeds United matters. There was the altercation with Ezgjan Alioski in the away dugout before Sergi Canos’s headbutt and the, now infamous, warning Leeds should fear Brentford before their meeting in February 2020.
The Dane’s now gone onto an official Premier League programme as an in-work manager at a club in the same division and called out Javi Gracia’s tactics. The Bees boss was analysing the Liverpool hammering from Monday night.
"I think he (Weston McKennie) is too high," Frank told Premier League Productions. "I don’t know exactly what they want, but there is no holding midfielder.
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"You are playing against probably the best counter-attacking team in the world when they are on it. Then they can punish you, as they did."
Now, he’s not entirely wrong. On a night the Whites were battered 6-1 there is hardly a leg for anyone to stand on in defending the home tactics or performances on the field.
McKennie has become a talking point in recent weeks. The USA international was sensational, like many others, in the Nottingham Forest win, when he had that license to roam and play forward.
Within 13 days of that night, he would look like one of the problems as Leeds collapsed to an 11-2 aggregate defeat against Crystal Palace and Liverpool. Frank is right, there is no natural holding midfielder in this Leeds system, especially McKennie.
The speculation, from Italy mainly, continues to rumble on about the American’s future. Some reports have suggested he will return to Juventus in the summer, regardless of where Leeds finish in the table.
In the meantime, he has a big job to do in the middle of Gracia’s side. There have been flashes of the quality which have taken him to one of the biggest clubs in Europe and the Champions League.
There are twists, turns, flicks, vision and movement which show the high level he can get to, but he hasn’t shown it anywhere near enough with Leeds. Is that down to him or the system?
Ironically, it’s the injury to his best friend in the squad which has hurt him the most. Tyler Adams’s hamstring problem has pulled United’s only senior, natural defensive midfielder out of the heart of the team.
The onus has been placed, largely, on Marc Roca and McKennie to play as a double pivot which both protects the Leeds backline and struggles to fight against its natural urges to attack. The former is a deep-lying playmaker, not a ball-winning midfielder or anchor protecting his centre-backs.
McKennie is your archetypal box-to-box midfielder, but following those instincts can, and has, left United exposed. Even if Adam Forshaw had been fit for the duration of this season, you could argue his attributes are not ideally suited to a purely defensive mindset at the base of midfield.
Neither Darko Gyabi nor Sam Greenwood fulfil those requirements either, even if they were four or five years older. Max Wober, as we saw briefly at Cardiff City, is arguably the next-best defensive midfielder behind Adams and it’s painfully clear how badly he is needed further back in the team.
McKennie still has the potential to have a big say on this run-in for the Whites, but Gracia has to find a way of getting the best from him, of compensating for his attacking traits. It’s not easy to do when you sift through the options the Spaniard has.
Perhaps it was too big a gamble pinning hopes on a 38-game season from Adams.
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