Antonio,
From a Sunderland fan:
Know The Rules Of Peter Reid
Philip Cornwall's article suggests that Leeds United will do 'OK' this season. They may do, but as a Sunderland fan still coming to terms with what Peter Reid did to this club I thought I'd save Leeds fans a lot of evenings puzzling over bizarre team selections and enquiring as to the whereabouts of mysteriously disappeared players by enlightening you as to the workings of the most cussed mind in football.
To make any sense of what lies before you over the next season you need to know the rules:
Rule 1: He never forgives and never forgets.
Any player falling out with him is doomed. And won't be picked. Ever again. That is why Viduka will leave.
The interesting thing about the list of players Reid sent to Coventry (or any other club which would have them) - Michael Bridges, Allan Johnston, Nicky Summerbee, Chris Makin, Stefan Schwarz - is that, as well as having strong opinions, they all could play.
Bridges was unhappy to be behind Danny Dichio in the striker pecking order. Who wouldn't be? Response: sold to Leeds.
Schwarz, an international with almost 100 caps, questioned the training methods (see below) in a meeting where players were invited to share their opinions. Response: sent back to Sweden for a month to 'calm down' and never started another game for Sunderland, even during the horrors of last season.
But Reid NEVER seems to fall out with those players the fans would actually like to see leave. In fact...
Rule 2: He likes who you don't.
Be prepared for one or two of Reidy's cheap summer signings to be first-team certs long after you've realised that they can't actually play very much at all.
His love affair with Kevin Kilbane at Sunderland made the goings-on between Posh and Becks look like a one-off knee trembler in a Manchester chippie.
Everyone in the ground knew the lad couldn't do it on the pitch but week after week, even after he gave fans the fingers in a pre-season friendly, he was out there passing to the opposition, running the ball into touch and crossing into the crowd. On a good day.
The reason for the loyalty: Reid had sold Allan Johnston against the fan's wishes. Kilbane was Johnston's replacement. To drop Kilbane would be to admit that he was wrong. He will never do this - because he is the boss and you, the fans, know nothing. Which leads us to....
Rule 3: He doesn't like who you like.
Take care in end-of-season polls because he likes nothing more than to show the paying public that they know bugger all about football.
Two seasons ago Don Hutchison was voted Sunderland's player of the season. Reidy sold him within three weeks - and we fell from 7th to 17th. The season before last Jody Craddock got the vote. Two weeks later it was announced that Craddock was fourth-choice centre-back for the season ahead - because of course we now had Phil Babb to keep out those nasty foreign forwards.
He doesn't like being told who is good - so if I were you I'd make sure next year's Leeds player of the season vote goes to the bloke you most want to see out of the door. Nick Barmby, for example.
Rule 4: Don't hold your breath at set-pieces.
When Reidy took over at Leeds I thought that the one thing that might save him was that at least he had good coaches there. Within a month he had sacked Brian Kidd and Eddie Gray.
The quality of first-team coaching at Sunderland was laughable, but I've heard that Reidy's old mucker Adrian Heath has been spotted at Leeds. So the two men who bought, managed and trained the worst team in Premiership history are back together. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Training sessions at Sunderland consisted of three main exercises: head tennis, kicking the ball miles up in the air straight above you and then catching it on your instep (something which of course happens all the time in the heat of the action), and competitions where you had to chip the ball against the bar before you could go in for a shower (chipping it UNDER the bar might have been a more useful training exercise).
Don't expect pre-planning at free kicks and corners, although there is a neat little plan at throw-ins which sometimes sees you at least getting the ball back for a second or two before it is struck like a bullet towards the opposition's corner flag. Set pieces are for girls - Reidy wants his team to 'get into the opposition's faces', which is why...
Rule 5: Foreign players are shite.
Because they don't like this 'getting into the faces' thing. If he didn't like foreign players before he started buying them (during his last two desperate years at Sunderland) the ones he did buy certainly did their best to prove his initial fears were justified.
Sunderland had a reputation for not spending money but that was because the team Reid picked week after week didn't actually cost much by modern standards. But the reserve team cost a bloody fortune.
Carsten Fredgaard - £1.75m - two appearances - no goals.
Milton Nunez - £1.8m - no starts,no goals and a failed law suit because he didn't actually play for the team we thought we'd signed him from.
Nicholas Medina - £3.5m - no appearances in two years but a very nice 80s haircut.
Lilian Laslandes - £3.5m - no goals and a massive row with Reid about being French.
So a popular ploy of Reidy over the last two years has been to take foreign types on trial for a couple of weeks to see if they are any good. They're usually not and he sends them packing, probably seeing it as doing his bit for the asylum problem. It's no real way to attract major European stars is it?
If Leeds possess any Johnny Foreigners who think football is about flair and who like to speak in their native tongue (foreign languages were banned in the Sunderland dressing room) they might as well pack their bags now because when the going gets tough, they'll get the blame.
