Taking charge of his first Leeds United game over the weekend, Javi Gracia brought a smile back on faces at Elland Road with a 1-0 win over Southampton.
The Spaniard was chosen by Victor Orta to replace Jesse Marsch after a long search for the right manager, which took the Yorkshire club to Spain, Holland and even Argentina.
Leeds approached Arne Slot at one point, with the Dutchman currently flying high with Feyenoord in the Eredivisie, but the Premier League side were blocked from having serious talks with him by his club.
The idea of losing their manager midway through the season wasn’t one they wanted to entertain, leaving the Whites will little choice but to look elsewhere.
They now have Gracia, who has been charged with the task of keeping Leeds from dropping back down to the Championship, and the win against Southampton was a step in the right direction.
However, if they fail, they will wonder what could have been had they managed to get Slot, with the Dutch media on Monday claiming that the approach from Orta for the Feyenoord man stemmed from the success Erik ten Hag has enjoyed at Manchester United.
Writing in De Telegraaf, relayed by Soccer News, following the former Ajax manager’s first trophy win at his new club in the EFL Cup, Valentijn Driessen said: ‘The success of Ten Hag is good for the international market value of the Dutch trainers’ guild. The approach for Arne Slot by Leeds United was directly related to Ten Hag’s performance at Manchester United’.
