Bates says no to Sven

The search for a new Leeds manager will be suspended for the time being as Ken Bates decreed that Neil Redfearn will be the next three matches to prove his worth in the running for the permanent job.

Now, nearly everybody in football knows that Bates is not the straightest-thinking of chairmen, he sacked Simon Grayson a day after he concluded business in the January transfer window after a spell in which short-termism was God (33 loan deals in 37 months) and is often sparking verbal slanging matches with his fans in weekly programme notes.

But his decision to give short-shrift to Sven Goran Eriksson’s application for the job, after the age-old Sven trick of being flattered by reported links and then declaring interest as his momentum increases. In he comes with the politics, the scatter-gun approach to transfers and the media puppeteering. Yes, we all know Sven.

The Eriksson circus which has blighted so many clubs beforehand is too eccentric even for Bates and his application, like that badly spelled, sloppy form sent in by a teenager seeking a job at NEXT, has been chucked, very forcefully, in the office bin.

Children even younger than teenagers have been attracted to the vacant Leeds job it turns out, an eleven year old desperate for a future in the game has submitted his application, as has a Football Manager enthusiast, clearly believing his own hype after emerging victorious from a competition in 2010.

In true Bates fashion, where he has likened the “slow arousal” in re-building Leeds to that of sexual-intercourse, it could have turned into a farce, but nope, the chairman has remained strong and not buckled to idiocy, he’s described some applications as “outlandish” and is “in no rush” to appoint a successor, so Redfearn gets the gig for the time-being.

9^th placed Leeds’ next three games, which Redfearn will oversee, will be against 10^th placed Brighton at home, 24^th placed Coventry away and then 22^nd placed Doncaster Rovers back at Elland Road. Three winnable games and an ideal way for Bates to implicate his cheap and easy method of promoting Redfearn to the hot-seat?

Maybe, but at least it’s better than Sven.

@AdamGray1250