Phil Hay - Inside Elland Road: Leeds United's Samuel Saiz couldn't defend the indefensible

IT IS rare for football to form a consensus on anything but spitting is a universal enemy. There was a reason why the Football Association applied a six-match ban to the offence and elected to treat it with strict liability.
Leeds United's Samuel Saiz is sent off at Newport County.Leeds United's Samuel Saiz is sent off at Newport County.
Leeds United's Samuel Saiz is sent off at Newport County.

Few transgressions are less palatable or more difficult to excuse.

Leeds United and Samuel Saiz had the sense to offer no mitigation in Saiz’s apology for spitting at Newport County’s Robbie Willmott last Sunday. They had the sense to avoid the phrase “not that type of player” and to avoid any mentions of football. Losing Saiz for six games might drain the club’s season of oxygen but Leeds can brood about the sporting implications in private and sanction Saiz by fining him what his indiscretion is worth. Say sorry and mean it which Saiz sounded like he did, irrespective of his poor grasp of spoken English.

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There are ways of handling these incidents and Leeds as a club have evidently grown up. A little under two years ago, Souleymane Doukara received an eight-match ban for biting Fulham’s Fernando Amorebieta.

Souleymane Doukara.Souleymane Doukara.
Souleymane Doukara.

Doukara pleaded his innocence but Fulham’s backroom staff took photographs of teeth marks on Amorebieta’s chest and were concerned enough to send him for a course of antibiotics. The evidence was sufficient for the FA to find Doukara guilty of an offence even farther up the scale than spitting.

Leeds said they were “disappointed” with the outcome, promised to comment fully after the FA’s written reasons were published and then never did. Doukara returned five weeks later without another word said: no admission of guilt, no public defence of him or even any confirmation of whether Leeds had disciplined him internally. Biting; just one of those things.

Saiz, for the sake of his reputation, could not have fudged the issue like that. He was seen spitting at Willmott by one of Mike Dean’s assistants and it was apparent by Monday morning that a mea culpa was needed. It came in the form of Saiz apologising for “inexcusable” behaviour and reminding himself that he was a “role model to the next generation of Leeds supporters”.

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Danny Mills, the former United player and once a columnist for this newspaper, used to argue vehemently that footballers were neither role models nor people who the general public should seek to mimic or look up to. The fact remains that they need some standards, some red lines and some understanding of their professional responsibility.

El-Hadji Diouf.El-Hadji Diouf.
El-Hadji Diouf.

Saiz’s own standards depend now on his ability to draw a line under Sunday’s FA Cup tie; on him ensuring that, unlike persona non grata El-Hadji Diouf, he does not come to be seen as a repeat offender.

Diouf is proof that talent will tempt clubs to invest in almost anyone and Leeds were not above paying him a wage when times were hard but Diouf’s ability was almost a passing thought in his later years, a minor note set against his charge sheet. Saiz is too good a footballer for that and too good to burden himself with a reputation.

There is nothing so peculiar as players scraping the barrel when they are more than gifted enough to talk with their feet.

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Saiz talks lucidly with his and when thoughts about his misdemeanour at Newport come back round to football, it is apparent that Leeds stand to bear the cost of his ban.

Souleymane Doukara.Souleymane Doukara.
Souleymane Doukara.

Doukara’s suspension in 2016 was of no great consequence, at least from the club’s point of view. United had thrown in the towel on promotion two months earlier and Steve Evans, the incumbent head coach, was fighting for nothing more than an extension of his contract, well aware of the fact that Doukara was unlikely to be the difference between another 12 months or unemployment.

Saiz is off the other end of the scale; the extrovert in Thomas Christiansen’s squad, the player topping so much of the statistical analysis and the imaginative cog around whom this team has been built.

Leeds have a season in the balance and assets like Saiz are there to tip it in their favour. If Saiz is as remorseful as he seemed the next six weeks will be agony for him, standing at arms’ length as the Championship rages on around him.

At the end of a salutary lesson he can only hope that the club have not suffered in the same way.