The default setting of fans on social media is despair and panic if we aren’t winning every week playing "Bielsa ball" and therefore hang Meslier and Farke from a lamppost. I do believe that nobody gets better by being told they’re shit and if you want to destroy a player, or a person, or team, that’s how to do it.
So with a large dollop of fatalism simmering away in the background, Leeds fans still think they're the best in the world. Whilst also reveling in the "Dirty Leeds" moniker and also believing that "bad things happen because it's us," we're cursed, gypsies did it, it's Leedsy (look we've even got an adjective for christ's sake). All whilst being heavily vested in the club, no holidays this year but all 3 kits bought at 60 quid a pop. "We've paid good money, so we'll say what we bloody well we like," and often, and we'll treat it like Brexit, are you in or out on lynching Farke, or what?
All whilst sitting in a Tate brothers style environment of win win win, call out the Betas, the cucks, failure not an option, deride those not up to snuff, single-out and gaslight. Maybe send some death threats to players on IG on the bad end of some Albanian battery-acid coke late Saturday night. Or simply trot out the same tired cliches week in week out, can't defend, biscuit hands, no plan b, no subs, wrong subs, late subs, blah, blah, blah.
Rinse and repeat. Amplify the message as a herd. Not worried in the slightest if becomes self-fulfilling as the pressure, the silent killer, fucks it all up for this "Big Club." That can f**k off as well!
There's a reason we did well during Covid and it wasn't just Bielsa. Players enjoyed their games. Players punched well above their weight. The Bielsa effect? Or the no Biff effect? Bit of both I'd say. And we do tend to sometimes recognise the latter, but we always project it back on the players, avoid the root cause, because we're the best fans in the world, "Bamford's a confidence player, played well in an empty grounds!" How dare he cup his ear, we come here week in week out!
When in reality, they all played better in an empty ground, just watch the Man City game if you want validation on that.
And I don't know if we can fix it, as it is what we are and finding a collective agreement across a fanbase is going to be like knitting fog. Brexit vibes innit, you either love Firpo or hate him. None of that centrist bollocks of, he's decent sometimes and adds value, so forgive him for the odd slip up.
No one wants to hear they might be the cause of the cancer that kills the one they love. But let's look long and hard at this here "curse" and what it means to be Leedsy, the only constants from the first day the club kicked a ball, to last week against Swansea, is the fans and the ground. And of course, we go and blame some soil, concrete and empty crisp packets. But in reality, we might be the curse..
