Though Massimo Cellino has yet to say whether Neil Redfearn will or will not be head coach next season, his days must surely be numbered after the Italian’s latest bizzare outburst, accusing Redders of turning the fans against him.
Cellino told the Daily Mirror "He thinks he’s so strong that he can put me in the s--- because I’m worrying about the fans. F--- me, what kind of chairman have you got? He tried to play the fans against me to keep his place. Do you think that Neil Redfearn loves Leeds more than me?”
Actually we do, seeing as Redders has been a Leeds fan all his life, rather than just a chancer who happened to spot that we were the biggest sleeping giant in European football. But Il Presidente continued "Tell me why I am in Leeds, why am I so involved with the club? Why am I putting in a lot of money, killing myself?”
"Because I fell in love with this club. Neil Redfearn does the Leeds salute. He challenged me. If you are good I can accept the challenge. But not if you are a bad coach. He wins two games and he disappears. He loses five games and he comes to me to ask my advice. Then he wins and disappears again. He has to respect the chairman. He has to respect. He’s like a baby. He’s been badly advised and used by someone. He is not a bad person but he has a weak personality.”
So was Redfearn trying to undermine Cellino by giving us the salute? Hardly, he was just showing that he was one of us. Did Cellino think it was a challenge due to paranoia or was it down to his his massive ego, as he couldn’t bear to have someone at the club more popular than him?
It’s true that at one stage Redfearn lost five games in a row, but only after the dressing room had been destabilised by the unexplained suspension of Steve Thompson. If you take those matches out of the equation Redders results were pretty good, especially considering the mess he inherited. Was it a deliberate plan to undermine Redfearn by removing his assistant and then blaming him for the poor results that were caused by the chaos that followed?
We always feared when Redfearn was appointed head coach that if he was sacked he would leave the club altogether rather than being able to resume the excellent work he was doing at the academy. And so it has come to pass, as Cellino told the Sunday Mirror "We already have two coaches for the young players.”
It may well be that the relationship between Redfearn and Cellino has broken down to such an extent it will now be impossible for Redders to work at the club in any capacity, but his departure will be a huge loss. For more than a decade the academy has been the only properly functioning part of our club, so we can only hope that the new academy coaches are good enough to carry on with his good work.
And it seems that Cellino already has a replacement lined up. He told The Mirror "I can't say who”. .but.."This new coach is angry — and he wants revenge. Just like me." That suggests it will be someone who has recently been sacked from another job, such as Gus Poyet or Mark Warburton, two of the names already linked with a job.
I’m guessing that Cellino is just waiting for Redfearn’s contract to expire before formally announcing his departure and his replacement so we’ll soon know. Either Poyet or Warburton could prove to be a good appointment, but that would depend on Cellino’s ability to keep out of the way and let them get on with their job, which could well be too much to ask for.
We heard the first anti-Cellino chants at Charlton, and after his shambolic press conference and the likely departure of Redfearn that could be nothing compared to what he’s likely to hear at the first home game next season. We don’t like the way things are going and even the Leeds fans who welcomed Cellino when he first got his hands on the club can now see what kind of character he is.
And there's no point Cellino blaming Redfearn for turning the Leeds fans against him, he has done an excellent job of doing that himself.