New Man: Javi Gracia

Where to begin…

Again, to introduce myself, my name is Dan, lifelong Leeds United fan & formally @RWBielsa on Twitter.

To start it off on the right foot, i’m going to say i’m not majorly aware of what kind of playing style Javi Gracia will bring to Leeds United. With the Spaniard all but announced as Jesse Marsch’s successor, I thought I would write a post about him just to pass on what I am currently thinking regarding the situation with Leeds United and more so with the managerial position. So here we are…

First of all, in my opinion, the Leeds United fan base MUST get behind Javi Gracia, particularly on Saturday when we play arguably our most important game of the season against Southampton. I think all the built up frustration must be put aside, to some degree, on Saturday and support as much as we can. As Phil Hay said on his most recent Podcast, as a whole Elland Road is a very supportive stadium with typically a positive atmosphere which I largely agree with. There has only been a handful on times in recent years where there has been a major vocal disapproval of what was happening at Leeds with a lot of the frustration being shown on social media and selected fans who shout “SACK THE BOARD!” when things aren’t going our way and at the minute, it’s not hard to understand why they shout that. As a whole I truly think we need to get behind the team as much as we can on Saturday; we have good squad and *finally* a decent manager in charge so there is no reason why we can’t take anything but 3 points away from that game. Famous last words and all that…

In regards to Javi Gracia and with me being open at the start stating i’m not overly familiar with his man management and tactics, from what I have heard and seen is that he seems like a man who will try to change things up a little bit. What I mean by that is maybe a change of formation with maybe three midfielders and also a different approach to the game in terms of changing from our previous idealogy of simply ‘attack’, this may adapt to a different approach of play the ball around and see what opens up. Again, I may be wrong with this, but i’m personally hoping to see a little more calmness in our play and even more possession, not always just looking for our wingers to make runs and cut inside but instead keep the ball and be effective with our passing and decision making - that’s personally what I am hoping to see from what Gracia will bring us (again, this is from my limited research and from what I have heard and seen from others).

Either way, as i’m sure a lot of other Leeds fans are, i’m just happy to finally have somebody at the helm taking charge and leading us. Massive thanks to Skubala for those three games but i’m very thankful he hasn’t been given this squad until the end of the season, nothing against him directly but I didn’t have high hopes unfortunately.

I, for one, am going to be getting behind Gracia and thousands of others are too.

Ps. Please get all 3 points Leeds.

MOT.