Criticising Massimo Cellino is often met with vitriolic backlash from the section of fans whose appreciation for his positive acts deafens any negative appraisal of his actions. After today’s shambolic defeat against Wolves Darko Milanic’s reign as head coach was very quickly ended, and in sacking him Massimo is rightfully open to criticism.

Don’t mistake my willingness to criticise this particular attribute of Massimo’s character as defense for Milanic; I whole-heartedly support removing Darko from the role. His needlessly negative tactics and corresponding poor results (or entire lack thereof) entirely justify his new-found unemployment. The problem is that it highlights one of Massimo’s biggest (and now repeated) flaws.

Learning lessons from Dave Hockaday

The very obvious problem with Dave Hockaday was that he was absolutely out of his depth; his CV was insufficient to even entertain the idea of him taking the role he was given. Massimo obviously hired him as a speculative cheap punt and was justifiably criticised for this when he was inevitably fired.

Don’t hire someone with no experience and a history of underachieving, ugly ineffective football and then criticise them for repeating those patterns under your stewardship.

Onto Darko Milanic, a man fired for being himself

Much like Hockaday, Milanic has lost his job for displaying qualities that he was known for prior to taking the role. When he was appointed (a relative unknown in England), Leeds fans reached out to our Sturm Gratz counterparts to enquire what to expect from the new head coach.

Paraphrasing slightly, the feedback was a combination of “crab football”, “negative” and “defensive”. Unsurprisingly, these are the qualities that Milanic brought to Leeds. Any positive phases of play were ultimately undone when Milanic imposed his trademark negative football. Like a Slovenian Alex McLeish.

This reflects badly on Massimo Cellino because of the rationale behind Darko’s exit.

Cellino: "I made a mistake with this guy. He is negative, he has a losing mentality." #lufc — Phil Hay (@PhilHayYEP) October 25, 2014

Obviously Massimo deserves credit for being pragmatic enough to admit mistakes and rectify them semi-quickly, but what he’s done there is announce he had less idea about Milanic’s qualities than we did, yet hired him anyway. As I so poignantly stated on my Twitter account:

You simply cannot hire a coach everyone says is negative, then fire him for being negative and accept no responsibility #lufc — I Hate Leeds (@ihatelufc) October 25, 2014

It’s very much like criticising a zebra for having stripes. If you hire a manager who is known for negative football and then fire him for playing negative football, it either means one of two things:

You’re legitimately insane You had no idea what style of football they’re known for before hiring them

While the more negative elements of our fanbase would argue for #1, I sit in camp #2. It seems like Massimo didn’t know much about Darko’s coaching ability before appointing him.

Agents bloody agents

While the wider footballing world is unsure how Dave Hockaday ever found himself in charge of Leeds United, the mystery surrounding Darko Milanic is far easier to solve. Word is that Darko’s agent is “well known” to Massimo; so it’s easy to assume that a friendly word was had into the Italian’s ear, a meeting was setup and BAM, head coach.

Massimo needs to receive criticism for this because he’s done little more than appoint another unknown entity. He didn’t know that Milanic was tactically negative prior to appointing him, later going on to fire him for being exactly that. Leeds United isn’t a plaything where one can flippantly hire-and-fire head coaches until finally finding one who portrays the qualities you desire, more by luck than judgement.

People dedicate large portions of their wages to support the club, following them the length of the country in their thousands. Hiring important characters in this setup as flippantly as one would select a ready meal from a Morrisons refridgerator shows a lack of respect to those who are heavily invested in this club (financially and emotionally).

It is for these reasons that Massimo Cellino is to blame.

Massimo Cellino, in summary

The Sheriff of Leeds has done an awful lot of good for the club; he’s far from perfect but he’s the best owner/chairman/president/deity (delete as appropriate for your specific world-view) we’ve had for a very long time indeed. I like his attitude, I love his passion and I genuinely believe he wants to make us a powerful footballing entity again.

But he does need to be criticised for his head-coach hiring policy because it’s frankly ridiculous. However, the news that has trickled out after the Milanic firing is that Neil Redfern has been given the job permanently, which is superb. 32 days too late, but superb all the same.

On and on. Oh and just for old time’s sake (where old = late September)…