“Spot on, Hard to disagree with what he’s said, makes alot of sense, sadly every word is correct” – Leeds fans agree with Simon Jordan’s as he blames Whites owner Andrea Radrizanni and Victor Orta for PL relegation
Leeds avoided relegation from the Premier League with a win in the final game of the 2021/22 season.
Leeds decided to get rid of Marcelo Bielsa and bring in Jesse Marsch in February, and Jesse Marsch did enough to keep the Whites in Premier League for another year.
Radrizzani said that the 2022/23 season the goal is to stabilise the club in Premier League. If they were lucky, they might be back in the top half. He was convinced that Leeds wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of last season and will not be part of a relegation battle for 2022/23.
“This year, in my opinion, we’ve done a great job in the market and we have a very competitive team”, the Leeds chairman told The Athletic.
“The target I set is between 10th to 14th position.
“If we’re lucky, we are close to 10th or more.
“If we aren’t lucky, we are 15th.
“But I think we are in that range.
“I don’t want to have any more heart-attack risk.
“I don’t have any doubt that we’ll avoid a situation similar to last season.
“It’s impossible.”
However, his words came back to haunt him well and truly as Leeds ended up being relegated on the final day of the 2022/23 season. After being thrashed by Tottenham in the final game of the season, a statement was released on the club website.
Simon Jordan feels the blame lies at the board after it was confirmed that Leeds were returning to the Championship. Leeds parted company with Jesse Marsch, Javi Gracia and sporting director Victor Orta in the final few months of the season.
Jordan said: “Who’s in contention for worst owner of the season? It depends what you measure it by. I mean, if you’re measuring it by bad decisions and agendas that aren’t for the best for the football club, then you’re probably looking at Leeds.
“Because you’ve got an owner that apparently said at the beginning of the season, laughing at a group of fans, that there was no danger of relegation. It was ridiculous observation, it was impossible.
“I think the quote attributed to Radrizzani. And here they are, having stayed with a manager that shouldn’t been gotten rid of in Jesse Marsch, having tried to pin a turn on the donkey by finding a manager.
“And landing with Javi Gracia, who I think is not a bad manager, but was the wrong manager for Leeds in terms of the group of players that he tried to change from a certain style of play into another and they weren’t capable of doing it.
“To appointing Sam Allardyce with four games to go. Sam Allardyce, whose last outing was to get West Brom relegated.
“If you’re going to employ Sam and pay him significant amounts of money and give him whacking great big bonuses that are so unpalatable to stay up and you least lead to least give him six to eight games, not four of which two of them against Man City and Newcastle, to give yourself a chance.
“And of course, you’ve got a boardroom mess between one ownership, one part of the ownership that gets to takeover if they stay in the Premier League and one part of the ownership that gets to go.
“And rumours going around that one part of the ownership wanted to sell players whilst the other didn’t. So it’s a shocking waste because Leeds United have taken 17 years or 16 years to get back to the Premier League and gone out in three after having two relegation battles.
“One they got away with last season and one they’ve suffered for.
“So I think it would probably go to Leeds.
But I would think it’s probably the Ass of the Year award probably goes to Leeds United, not to their supporters, who are remarkable set of supporters that have the most feral atmosphere Elland Road because I’ve been there with teams that I owned and it was such an intimidating place, but because a club that had such potential, that was possibly everybody’s second favourite team when they came up, has allowed itself to drift back into the Championship, they never exercised the Bielsa spirit.
“He had run his course Bielsa, but they needed to replace him with someone that took them on and they didn’t.
“They listened to American ownership that fought the RB models in Austria and Germany meant that Jesse Marsh was the right solution and he wasn’t. And everything sort of grew from that poisonous tree. So, Leeds.
When questioned if the club had put too much faith in Orta, Jordan said via talkSPORT: “Yes to some extent, but they’ve put too much trust in a variety of different places. If you’ve got an ownership model that’s pulling one way and two people in the boardroom, one that’s selling the football club on the basis it’s staying in the Premier League and the new owner sitting waiting in the wings with a different viewpoint on things, that’s why you’ve got people alleging that players were going to be sold by one part of the ownership with another part of the ownership model not wanting them to be sold.
“The RB model is great if you’re playing in Austria of the German leagues that are not as competitive as the Premier League. It’s not the same model that happens in the Premier League.
“To lift Jesse Marsch and drop him in, to exorcise the spirit of Marcelo Bielsa was a mistake. To stay with him longer than they should have done was a mistake.
“To not have any availability around and then start pinning tails on donkeys because they couldn’t find anybody and Javi Gracia came in to fill a gap for a period of time. I was [surprised] and I wasn’t because there wasn’t anything around, there was two or three football clubs looking for managers at that time and they were having difficulty finding them.
“They can’t find any candidates to come forward. Southampton were in the same space hence they ended up with Ruben Selles because they couldn’t find anyone to take the job.
“I think there was an element of that going on at Leeds to some extent which is unbelievable for a Premier League job, but not withstanding it, it was the case. I thought he [Gracia] did okay and then of course no one can understand this, they are battering Crystal Palace in the first-half, Palace scored before half-time and Leeds just absolutely evaporated.
“From that point on, they lose five, they lose six, they lose four and it becomes a staple diet that he can’t seem to unwind from.
“They are [shocking] but if you look at Leeds’ decision making, they’ve never replaced Kalvin Phillips, they never replaced an offensive option in Raphinha. Patrick Bamford at times this season, I thought was diabolical.
“Poor, not just penalty misses but in games where he didn’t hold the line up, he didn’t do his job. I don’t know whether new contracts have effected his outcome because he got a new contract.
“He was back to the Patrick Bamford centre-forward that went around Palace and other football clubs because he couldn’t get a proper gig, rather than the Patrick Bamford, a couple of years ago, that was scoring a lot of goals for them.
“All of that diminishes against the reality of decision making processes. What’s the point in bringing Sam in to give him this unpalatable amount of money, £500,000 for four games and £3million for staying up, and give him four games, of which two of those are against Newcastle and Man City.
“It was never going to work. He needed six or eight games to have an effect so it’s a silly set of decisions. They’ve wasted – two years ago Leeds, dirty Leeds of the 70s were everyone’s second favourite side because of the brand of football and they’ve got this situation now where they’ve snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”
As you can see above, Simon Jordan goes in on the Leeds owner for saying relegation was ‘impossible’ last summer, here’s how fans reacted to what the talkSPORT host had to say…
@Kershaw444: To be fair to @Sjopinion10 I remember him saying as soon as Leeds has stayed up under Marsch that he should be sacked and moved on as he wasn’t very good and had just got very lucky (something in those words) #lufc
@MOTweets1919: Need a new owner, new board, new DoF, new manager, new staff, and a decent amount of new signings as well. Oh, and we’ll be everyone’s cup final next season as well. Good luck navigating that
@JordyP1993: You know what, of a fair swash of drivel or staged engagement TS put on, Simon has been pretty much bang on about us since we returned. Always complimentary too with the fans. Do you fancy getting back into ownership @Sjopinion10? Asking for a fanbase… ????
@DirtyDirtyLeed1: You talk alot of sense ????
@LeedsUtd365: Agree with Simon’s assessment of Leeds United’s owners
@Ragnorclae: To have an ownership who believed that they could carry on riding on the coattails of MB make little to no headway in the transfer market, even after he’d left was ridiculous. An owner who handed power to a man whose track record in selecting a balanced team was way off the mark.
@chris_howling: Spot on … self destruction as usual….
@bremner1919: @andrearadri Needs to speak up now and take some responsibility!!! Tell us wtf he’s gonna do!! It’s our club he’s just a caretaker!! BUT it really beggars belief what care he’s taken!?
@MellyMaestro: I hope any Leeds fans aren’t rushing to disagree with this because it’s spot on. We’ve completely embarrassed ourselves with this past season/14 months.
@marstonworld: Sadly, every word is correct.
@FlackOllie: Always so sad that the fans suffer because of the clown at the top
@pilotgeorgie: 100% agree with Simon Jordan! Worried that he thinks it was the 49ers that pushed the Marsch/RB model! I don’t see us going straight up unless bold, sensible decisions are made and quickly!
@LeedsWoody1919: @Sjopinion10 Spot on as usual. @andrearadri isn’t just an ass. He’s an absent arsehole who hasn’t even got the decency to address us a fan base
@Toneball29: Ha into him Simon #lufc
@lufc_rammy: Spot on, you won something @andrearadri ????
@MacaulyLUFC: Hard to disagree with what he’s said here
@Trant05: I can only agree with him – we were potentially on the verge of something great – until @andrearadri gave Orta too much authority & also took his eye of the goal – premiership survival !! Now it will cost him @LUFC
