Short-term contract. Summer transfer window. The process is underway. October. January transfer window. Thursday’s Nick Hammond announcement showed 49ers Enterprises are not ignorant to what’s gone on and gone wrong at Leeds United.
Led by Paraag Marathe and Peter Lowy, the new faces controlling the fate of the club have shown patience and judgement in the hire of an interim football advisor. The last two seasons at Elland Road have been a mess and while Marathe and Lowy have sat on the board which has overseen it all, they are at least showing an awareness things need to change, and not in a minor way.
This summer is already awash with a litany of problems the new owners must address. The small matters of a head coach and playing squad cannot be cans kicked down the road.
They absolutely have to be in a position to hit the ground running from the first weekend in August. Marathe, Angus Kinnear, Hammond and the board will face those matters head-on, but the wider ethos, project, working pattern, approach and hierarchy require more thought.
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These are deep-rooted standards and processes the 49ers vehicle must instil over a long period of time. If they want to build their new vision from the ground up it will require time and a fine-tooth comb.
The board cannot afford to rush that decision and, evidently, do not want to simply transplant a new director of football into an operation previously built and harnessed by Victor Orta. In delaying an eventual appointment until the autumn, Marathe and the top brass are showing they want to do this properly.
They want to carry out a root-and-branch review of United’s entire football operation and that requires months, not days or weeks. In showing they are not here to do things quickly, in a rush and carelessly, 49ers Enterprises have cleared something of an initial hurdle.
They can see the last two years have not been good enough and they do not want to bury their heads in the sand to that reality. Time will tell how successful their investigation and subsequent actions prove, but it is at least a promising early move.
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