Javi Gracia ‘undermined’ at Elland Road as Leeds United step back to Neil Warnock days, Phil Hay agrees
The Square Ball host Michael Normanton believes Leeds United fans are almost undermining Javi Gracia with their reaction to his in-game management.
Gracia has come under fire from Leeds fans in recent weeks due to his failure to play Wilfried Gnonto even though the Italy international has been one of the best players at Elland Road this season.
Gnonto, 19, was an unused substitute in the 1-1 draw with Leicester on Tuesday with fans becoming increasingly agitated by Gracia’s use of his bench.
Speaking on the latest episode of The Phil Hay Show podcast on Friday (28 April, 19m56s), Normanton said: “I felt like the chanting of ‘make a sub’ was very… I know people were chanting for Marsch out at one point but I feel like ‘make a sub’ was very much undermining the manager in a way I can’t remember for a while.”
The Athletic journalist Phil Hay agreed, before Normanton continued: “As in like, ‘we can all see this, we’re literally telling you how to do your job here’.
“It goes back to Neil Warnock days.”
Terrible
Leeds fans are right.
It’s so blatantly obvious that Gracia isn’t managing games properly and that could be why we’ve capitulated in home games against Crystal Palace and Liverpool before letting slip of a lead to lose to Leicester, who could have easily won against us on Tuesday.
Gracia made just one tactical substitution against Leicester and that was to take off Rodrigo – who’d shown plenty of fire and passion – to replace him with the out-of-sorts Brenden Aaronson.
Gracia had one more substitution window to use where hew could have made another three changes but the likes of Rasmus Kristensen, Adam Forshaw, Sam Greenwood, Georginio Rutter and Gnonto were all snubbed by the struggling Spanish manager.
It made no sense, especially when players like Marc Roca, Aaronson and Patrick Bamford were struggling so badly.
It feels like Gracia has made his mind up about certain players and that’s that – he won’t deviate.
If he does keep Leeds up, there’s no way he should be the manager next season.
In other Leeds United news, an issue with Gracia’s relationship has emerged, according to Hay.