Speed and breadth of change are going to be critical to Javi Gracia’s success at Leeds United. How much the Spaniard wants to tear up the previous regime and how quickly he does that could make or break the last 15 games of the campaign.
The Whites have gone from 11 months of Jesse Marsch’s ill-fated doctrine to two weeks of Michael Skubala’s tweaks and now there is a third voice to follow. How well the squad takes in and adapts to what Gracia is telling them will be so important.
Marsch would tell you, and told the players too often perhaps, the squad was struggling to get to grips with his tactical outlook. Others might tell you his system was flawed in the first place, but either way, it’s a way of playing which has been driven into them every day since the end of February 2022.
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Arguably, there is neither the time nor the number of matches remaining for Gracia to conduct a full rewire. As Skubala alluded to last week, the Spaniard may have to restrict himself to tweaks.
Does that keep Leeds in the division though? Do they need more than tweaks? This is what Gracia will need to address when he faces the media for the first time. If he backs himself and his coaching ability, perhaps he does feel big changes can have an immediate impact on the field.
Rudimentary reading around Gracia’s past would suggest he likes the 4-2-2-2 Marsch has used, or a 4-4-2 which would seemingly suit the players in this squad. There is also an appetite for structured pressing in the final third, which United have preached since the summer of 2018.
Skubala seems a crucial figure in this transition. A coach who has been in and around Thorp Arch since last summer and then, latterly, at the helm of the first team itself, Skubala is the bridge between ideologies.
The knowledge and experience he can share with Gracia on every player, every tactical facet and how this last fortnight has mapped out post-Marsch, will be priceless for the former Watford boss. This is a squad which needs to be a sponge for Gracia’s new vision and malleable to what he wants to see, and with so little time to do it.
The upcoming international break, in less than four weeks’ time, already looks like a crucial spell for Gracia and the squad on the grass at Thorp Arch across two uninterrupted weeks. Before then he has Southampton, Fulham in the cup, Chelsea, Brighton & Hove Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The move from one voice to a third in the space of two weeks is going be a test of everyone inside United’s footballing ability.
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