One game in but is the axe hanging over new Leeds boss Milanic?

As club owner Massimo Cellino watched amongst the Leeds faithful at Griffin Park, new man in charge Darko Milanic could be forgiven for thinking that defeat to Brentford was the beginning of the end for his time at the Yorkshire side, with his owner’s reputation as being far from accommodating for slow starts.

A lacklustre performance, where his side created very little, and were a little lucky to lose just 2-0 wasn’t the start the Slovenian needed if he was to adorn himself to the club’s tempestuous chairman.

He claims that results won’t come instantly, and patience will be needed:

“I want to play offensively and we played with two strikers but it’s not enough if you don’t have offensive thoughts. That first game at Elland Road will be very important for us. With support and energy we can make it. But I have to know individual players in the division better and I need time.”

But how much time he will be given is up in the air.

And with that poor start against a Brentford side who had lost their previous two games 3-0 and 4-0 Ladbrokes make it a 6/1 shot that Milanic leaves the club before Christmas, and 2/1 that he isn’t in charge at the start of the 2015/16 campaign.

Since taking over the club back in February Cellino has seen four different managers, or ‘Head Coaches’ as he prefers them to be referred to, directing things from the dugout.

Furthermore, in his 22 years involved with football, the Sardinian has relieved 37 different managers from their position of power, earning the nickname in Italy as ‘il Mangiatore di Direttore’, or ‘The Manager Eater’.

He certainly wasted no time in flexing his muscles in Yorkshire, virtually engineering Brian McDermott’s exit at the end of last season, before appointing the unproven David Hockaday at the start of this campaign.

Six poor performances yielding two wins (one of them against League 2 Accrington) were all it took for the former Forest Green man to get his marching orders.

Redfearn, who was put in caretaker charge actually flourished during his four games at the helm, winning three and drawing the other, and yet Cellino decided he wanted to appoint from abroad.

Why Milanic was entrusted in the role seems somewhat of a mystery, even to the man who made the decision, with his reasons behind his choice taking a strange fruit analogy:

“I don’t know. The coaches are like watermelons. You find out about them when you open them. His particular qualities? He’s good looking, what can I say?”

Whether the former Sturm Graz boss gets more time than Hockaday to inflict his footballing credentials on his Whites side is open to debate, but a couple more bad results and he is sure to be looking over his shoulder when he enters the Leeds boardroom.

All odds and markets correct as of the date of publishing

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