A lot has been said by Massimo Cellino recently about the inconvenience caused to fans by the rescheduling of games due to television. This came to a head when Cellino banned Sky from Elland Road for the game with Derby back in December, you’d have got good odds at Hityah on the game not being televised only hours before kickoff. The deadlock eventually being broken when Shaun Harvey negotiated their entry. Whether this was Cellinos real reason for his objections or actions is not entirely clear, many believe it is to try to force the issue of clubs selling their own TV rights, but it is definitely true that fans have been vastly inconvenienced.
Be it a Monday night in Middlesbrough or a Monday night in Brighton the move away from the weekend is still an inconvenience to the thousands who have bought their tickets and made arrangements. Many will have taken time off work for last nights visit the south coast. It is all however part of modern football, a pain but with a significant proportion of clubs revenue coming from broadcasting rights something than clubs and fans alike have put up with.
All the fans demand from their loyalty, commitment and hard earned cash is a performance and if they don’t get a performance it would be nice to have an explanation. Leeds United last night gave them neither. Brighton were firm favourites in the sports betting, with them challenging for play-offs and Leeds hovering above the relegation scrap. But four goals in the space of twenty first half minutes lead to a humiliating defeat. A penalty, a deflected own goal and a toothless performance up front gave the travelling faithful nothing to take home.
Massimo Cellino was in attendance at the Amex last night, he didn’t bother to stay for the second half though. Nor did Steve Evans hang around after the game having been told by Cellino not to attend the post-match press conference. He failed to do any interviews for local radio too. Instead it fell to Paul Raynor to speak to the press yet again;
"The first-half performance was shambolic. Our defending was atrocious and the manager is going to dissect it with the players. We only had 15 minutes at half-time to try and put a shape together and to show a bit of pride and commitment and heart out there and I felt we did that in the second half. But the first half was absolutely shambolic and it simply was not good enough.
"We know you are going to ask questions and we know you want answers. We can't worry about the chairman. If I was him I would have gone as well to be fair because he doesn't want to see his football club playing like that and I don't blame him for that."
So, a dismal performance and the President didn’t even have the courage to stay with the fans or send the head coach out to answer questions. A pretty poor performance all around from the club last night. The fans give their hearts to you, all they ask for is performance and a bit of respect.
