No NANO but a Mo!

I said there would be writing this half term, I was wrong, again! It was decided that a home improvement project was the most important part of the to do list to get on with and therefore, once more, my pastimes fell by the wayside. I was hoping to complete NANOWRIMO again this year but the new job and the way the holiday has gone have made me reconsider so I am sad to say that I will once again not be taking part. A lot of people have been saying that I need to stop working so hard and do a little more for myself so I am going to take inspiration from NANO and rather than commit the time to take part I will make sure I spend some time during the month writing, or rather creating images. I would really like to get my second children’s picture book out before Christmas, largely as it is for my son and I would love him to have a copy in his stocking. Will it happen, probably not, but I can dream!
In more positive news I have decide to grow the mo again and will be taking part in Movember, much to the annoyance of my long suffering wife! If you want to sponsor me then please do, you can do it by going here. I will update with some pictures to suitably scare you all! To help fundraise I have also decided to do some writing so will be producing a short story and selling it through Amazon Kindle with all profits going to Movember. So look out for that and please buy it, it will be quite serious with a silly setting.
Once again I am sorry about the lack of writing and that I will not be doing NANO but at least there is some good news! Right I am off to decide which tash will suit me best!

And there goes another one! (the latest part of the Massimo Cellino saga)

I was once told that the Australian Cricket Team picked a team and kept them together through thick and thin, allowing them to grow and develop to become a successful team. What is happening at Leeds United could not be further from this. Earlier today Uwe Rosler became the latest manager to be sacked by Leeds’ owner Massimo Cellino. Given his actions during his reign thus far it was no surprise. Like so many managers he has swept aside, Rosler’s win rate was not fantastic but to me this is missing the point. Leeds have not had a particularly fantastic time since being relegated from the Premier League in 2004 and it seems Cellino is just dumping more misery onto us fans. He has come to England expecting that by picking the right manager a team will suddenly win most games and be successful. Unfortunately sport does not work like that. What frustrates me more than anything else is that by looking at the way the team performed under Rosler they were moving in the right direction. Some solid performances and tight games with narrow loses shows that the team were putting in the effort and were just losing out by those fine margins people talk about, something that would have changed as times goes on. Leeds had just lost in the dying minutes to the team at the top of the league and been beaten by the team in second thanks to more than one large slice of luck. These were not performances where struggling teams were taking Leeds apart piece by piece, far from it. By sacking Rosler it is back to square one, removing him is not going to suddenly solve all the problems.

The other argument against sacking all these managers is the money they had available, has Cellino invested millions and bought some of the best players in the world who are underperforming? No he has not. So if he has not provided the means of success how can his standards be so high? I could understand if the creme de la creme of football were not successful but these are solid Championship players. There is an argument that if he sacks a manager for not being able to pick the right team then surely he cannot pick the right manager and thus has not done his job. Should he therefore sack himself?

There are many who say that he is actually in control of what happens on the pitch, that he picks the team and he chooses the tactics. Maybe he should manage the team himself and stop putting others through misery. If he is this involved then surely the lack of success is all his fault, again another piece of evidence that he should sack himself. Further evidence that he may be in control could be shown in the win rates of managers. Neil Redfern has the highest at 37.8% and the main bulk of wins were when Cellino was suspended, does this show that by just leaving the manager to do his job the success will come? But these successes do not seem to matter, although Redfern saved Leeds from relegation he too was sacked.

All this continues the unrest at Leeds and means that the team needs to start rebuilding again and again. How can you expect to be successful when every few months you need to begin again? As they say Rome wasn’t built in a day, I am also pretty sure it was not knocked down every two months and the first stones put in place once more, how can you build anything like that? The good news for Leeds fans is that Cellino is suspended again so new manager Steve Evans might get to do what he feels is right for a short time. If I was him I wouldn’t get too comfortable, as soon as Cellino is back he may only have a matter of weeks before he is back on the hunt for a job.

I think what this all shows is the Cellino is making a laughing-stock of Leeds United. Far from creating a successful club he is making the issues worse and it nows seems a long way to the stability and success Leeds fans deserve. Once again we will be looking at a relegation battle. I am personally waiting for the point where no manager will take the job and Cellino will finally get a taste of his own medicine because you know what, if everything that is said about him is true, he may well be the worst manager the world has ever seen!