Local knowledge can be key to finding a winner

FOUR key issues waiting for Leeds chief Milanic to tackle”, screamed the headline on a Yorkie paper this week so I’ve popped online to have a look.

I thought ‘what on earth am I doing here?’ might have been one of the issues but apparently not. Or not yet anyway.

I find it always pays to poke one’s nose into the regional rags ahead of a game like Rotherham against Leeds. Having spent a week and a bit genning up on the likes of Germany, Georgia and Gibraltar, I have to confess to having lost touch with the nuts and bolts of what’s happening in the proper football world.

I’m guessing, for example, that at least one of these clubs has sacked a manager this week based on the numbers that have been axed so far in this most brutal of seasons, and given that the aforementioned Tyke tabloid is still referring to Milanic in the present tense, I suppose it’s Rotherham. Poor old Steve Evans. He was doomed from the moment his trousers came down doing his Wembley wardance.

Anyway, one of the four key issues for Milanic to resolve apparently is to decide who gets to play the number ten role, or false number nine. As I recall Emile Heskey was the last great false number nine, but I digress.

The feller who did that job against Sheff Weds last time out was called Casper Sloth, without doubt one of the great names of modern football and on those grounds alone he deserves another shot at it. With Sloth on their side, it has to be Leeds.