Incoming Leeds United boss Javi Gracia's fix-it record, Bielsa and Marsch-like quotes and Rodrigo sadness

In this job it's a broken season that will be placed in his hands. Leeds are second bottom and there can be no suggestion that it's a false position. There is talent in the squad, some experience, plenty of character and a number of good attacking options and yet they've won just four times in the Premier League. The last of those victories came back in November, prior to a World Cup break that allowed previous manager Jesse Marsch to take them away to Spain to work on the training ground.

Defensively they've suffered from big switches and balls in behind the full-backs, system failures and individual errors costing them dearly. Going forward they've either struggled to create or been unable to take chances, relying too often on moments of brilliance from Willy Gnonto or Rodrigo. With the latter, their leading scorer, out injured, Patrick Bamford has gamely led the line without a great deal of service or a great deal of confidence when his chance comes. January signing Georginio Rutter looks raw and unlikely to immediately repay the £28m worth of confidence Leeds placed in him.

In midfield the absence of the injured Marc Roca for recent games has left them shy of a ball-player and having been coached to take advantage of moments by Marsch, they have lacked control all season. It's all a bit broken.

In the two most notable spells of his time in LaLiga, Gracia took over broken squads and dysfunctional clubs.

At Malaga, where he made a name for himself in the eighth appointment of his time as a manager, the Spaniard inherited the picked-over carcass of a team. Star players had been sold off and Gracia essentially had to work with youngsters, for there was little other option.

The way he approached the job, as much as the midtable finishes he masterminded, impressed The Guardian and ESPN Spanish football expert Sid Lowe.

"One of the things that really impressed me at that time was that Javi Gracia handled that with patience and calmness and brought young players through," Lowe told the YEP.

"He always seemed to me to have a very kind of teacherly sort of air. He built really careful teams. He built teams that had a variety of tactical solutions, that at times were largely defensive but could open up and play a bit as well. They got very good results against good sides."

Gracia, like legendary Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa, became known for his meticulous planning and the depth of his analysis. The plans he put in place to deal with Lionel Messi and the array of talent at Real Madrid gave him a reputation as a giant killer, a man able to thwart Spain's big two in a way others could not.

That and his rise to become one of Spain's most highly-rated emerging managers did not appear to change him, though.

"I went to see him once when he was at Malaga in this makeshift office they set up under the stand at the athletic stadium where they trained and there was an authenticity about him," said Lowe.

"He had no airs and graces, he didn't fancy himself at all, but he was very clear on what he wanted to do."

Calmness was what Leeds wanted and felt they found in caretaker Michael Skubala in the wake of Marsch's sacking. Clarity was what Marsch preached but never seemed to find in his time at Elland Road.

Where the club needs to find itself in May, other than outside the relegation zone, is at a better place in its relationship with the fans. Bielsa's sacking, much like Marsch's, felt necessary with only the timing up for debate, but it caused a disconnect between the support and the ownership that has never fully mended.

Gracia's ideal is to win games in a way that makes the fans part of it.

"Winning in any [old] way, without a sense of conviction and without winning over fans, without involving them, doesn’t bring complete happiness; you feel a little empty," he once said.

"Connecting with them is where true satisfaction comes from.”

There's some Bielsa in that. There's even some Marsch too, in the way he discussed his plan for Barcelona.

“Ceding them the wings carries risks but the goal is here: that never changes," he said.

"If they go out there, they’ll still have to come back in here. We abandoned that space outside and abandoned the [normal] idea of pressuring high. If we’re wide, they’ll find space inside. If we’re long, they’ll find space beyond. Everything moves; the one thing that doesn’t is the goal, the place they have to end up."

Ryan Gray covered Gracia's time at Vicarage Road for the Watford Observer. In January 2018 he replaced Marco Silva, whose sacking was blamed on a perceived loss of focus following an approach by Everton the previous year. What followed was largely successful.

"He stuck pretty rigidly to a 4-4-2," Gray told the YEP.

"It was no-frills, nothing too glamorous, but it was also pretty effective. He did well to get a tune out of people like Andre Gray and an ageing Troy Deeney and was a victim of his own success in many ways.

"He almost got Watford into Europe, got them to an FA Cup final and then was fired four matches into the season after. Since then, the club has been nowhere near and his firing sparked a domino chain of chaos that has seen them relegated twice with nine managers since. You'd be hard pressed to find a Watford fan who doesn't think that he should never have been fired."

Gray suspects that Gracia's initial leaving out of Ismaila Sarr, who was signed at a time when what he really wanted was centre-backs, rubbed Watford's ownership up the wrong way and so when they started the 2019/20 season poorly, was promptly and surprisingly sacked. But his spell remains fondly remembered. Watford finished 14th and 11th under his care.

"I think he was successful because he got the players onside and was a very good man manager," said Gray.

"He was much more interested in organisation and pressing aggressively - his team was largely designed to frustrate and then attack quickly. Daryl Janmaat and José Holebas had plenty of licence to attack out wide with Roberto Pereyra and Gerard Deulofeu often moving into the center from the wings when in attack, and Étienne Capoue and Abdoulaye Doucouré holding everything together in the centre. But he wasn't against a ball over the top to Deeney or Gray if it needed it."

Gracia was out of work until the following summer, when he returned to LaLiga to take what can only be described as a poisoned chalice.

"The Valencia job is a weird one for all sorts of reasons, institutional problems there, going through a lot of managers and fans hating the owner," said Lowe.

Gracia's appointment, given the broken pieces he put back together at Malaga, made a certain amount of sense but that summer's decision to sell Rodrigo to Leeds for £27m was part of a problematic start to life at Mestalla Stadium for the new manager.

A record transfer for the Whites in 2020, since surpassed by the arrival of Rutter, Rodrigo was one of a number of stars who was sold, leaving Garcia's squad weaker in words he uttered in public.

“I see the squad as the whole world sees it, weakened as a result of the exits that have taken place,” Gracia told Marca.

“I feel sadness because the potential this club has…well, we will not be able to meet it."

That sadness lingered around Gracia and Lowe sensed a resignation that it wasn't working as it had at Malaga.

"I think anything you analyse with Javi Gracia probably has to be through the prism of the situation of Valencia, but it surprised me that he seemed quite quick to sort of publicly express the fact that he wasn't very happy with it,” he told the YEP.

"It felt he had been disengaged from it, like there wasn't a connection there, when on the face of it at least I thought he had the skillset and the experience to go through it, because he had done it before and to make a success of it."

Gracia was sacked in May 2021, 38 games into his tenure with Valencia in 14th place, unable to fix a mess that was beyond the capabilities of predecessor Albert Celades and both José Bordalás and Gennaro Gattuso who came after. Today they sit 19th.

The next and last stop of his 15-year senior managerial career was the Qatar Stars League, where he succeeded now-Barcelona boss and Camp Nou legend Xavi at Al Sadd.

Qatar football journalist Mitch Freeley saw a manager who ticked one box but, crucially, not another.

"Xavi was a tough act to follow," Freeley told the YEP.

"He had played and worked with the majority of the Sadd squad and had a real aura with the players. Knowing that Gracia was a short-term appointment [he signed a one-year deal with an option for a second] was not good for the Sadd squad and he had communication issues with the team. They got over the line in the QSL, but lost out in the domestic cup, which was a big issue with the club management."

Gracia left in June of last year and the Leeds job will be his first since. The expectations at Elland Road will not be two-fold. He has one significant task - keep the club in the Premier League. Domestic cup success - they face Fulham away in the FA Cup fifth round next week - would be a huge bonus, but only as long as it accompanies a 17th place finish, or better, in the Premier League. To do that he's got to find a way to win games with a team not in that habit. He's got to put Leeds back together again.