Defeat drives another nail in the coffin

Michael Walker

At Elland Road

"The problem is that both the buyer and seller do not know what they are dealing with. Is this a Premiership club or a Division One club?"

Those words came last week and were reliably attributed to a source close to the negotiations involving the sale of Leeds United. However, on the evidence of their last home game before the club's January 19th deadline for going into administration, Leeds are best considered a future Nationwide League club. Three defeats in the 13 days preceding this one can be used in support.

It is too bold to say relegation is inevitable. But it is tempting. Had they won on Saturday Leeds would be four points behind 12th-placed Everton. Still in the relegation zone admittedly, but with hope. But this defeat had the sense of a landmark failure. For potential investors it was a performance that lacked even curiosity. It was bloodless, had neither brain nor brawn.

And it gets worse. Mark Viduka will be in Australia this morning attending his sick father. He left Elland Road at half-time and one imagines the last thing on his mind is getting back to Leeds in time to travel to Southampton on Saturday.

"I don't know how long Mark'll be away," said Eddie Gray, the Leeds caretaker manager. "It came up a couple of days ago. It was his decision to stay and play. But he just couldn't get his mind on the job." David Batty is also unlikely to be back for Southampton, Lucas Radebe is out for another month, Roque Junior has an achilles injury, Salomon Olembe and Lamine Sakho are off to the African Nations' Cup and the club discovers this morning the extent of the hamstring strain that led Michael Duberry to depart the pitch early after all three substitutes had been used.

Leeds were left 3-3-3 but continued to fail to find an equaliser to Robbie Keane's painfully simple 56th-minute goal against his former club. Kasey Keller, in the Tottenham goal, made no save in 90 minutes. At least Alan Smith will be back from suspension for the game at St Mary's.

"It's dispiriting," said Gray. "I don't think they showed what I expected of them today. When I came back to the club I said it'd be difficult, it's going to be even more difficult now. But it's not impossible." Not hugely convincing, Gray agreed Leeds would soon be down to the "bare bones" but bringing in new faces, Gray added, is complicated by the bigger picture.

Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Mubarak al-Khalifa, a potential saviour from Bahrain, appeared to ease himself out of it yesterday when he said: "It was fated that I should love the club. Whether that fate will determine I can save them, I don't know." That leaves former director Allan Leighton and businessman Philip Green as the favourite rescue team but Green has not made a mini-mint by buying over the odds.

Leeds have yet to travel to Manchester United, Arsenal, Fulham, Birmingham City and Bolton this season, before a final-day trip to Stamford Bridge. It clearly is realistic to plan for relegation.

Even that, though, might not be the end of the misery. Leeds have been compared to West Ham and they are not setting the first division alight. Drop down another division and Sheffield Wednesday offer a more alarming Yorkshire example of what can happen.

Tottenham's own caretaker, David Pleat, took Wednesday to the top of the Premiership seven seasons ago. On Saturday, Wednesday came back to draw 1-1 at home to Swindon, the point leaving them 15th in the Second Division. "Of course there are parallels," Pleat said. "If you have lived the dream and haven't been careful . . ."

No one was blaming Pleat, whose Spurs side seem to have recovered some impetus. "I think we have handled our club very well over the last three or four years," he said, "apart from the fact that we don't get the results we would like."

Guardian Service