Whenever I’m watching Leeds United lately, I keep scratching my head and revisiting the narrative offered when Jesse Marsch joined the club. When Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds were being routinely trounced in the final months of his remarkable time at the club, the media would endlessly lambast the naive and foolish tactics. “Like watching kids play football,” I remember Gary Neville saying after one of our humiliating results on Sky Sports. You can’t man-mark 10v10 in the Premier League, they said. It will only end one way.

Marsch came in and we all understood that the rest of the season wasn’t supposed to be reflective of our longer-term situation. Needs must. Joffy scoring last-gasp winners, final day heroics at Brentford, rollercoasters of emotion so extreme your Fitbit was trying to dial 999.

But now it’s winter, and our football is as volatile as ever. It’s also, arguably, as naive as ever.

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