Hey, you! Yeah, you! Are you tired of taking the high road all the time? Has the sanitised, corporate Premier League got you down? What you need, my friend, is to listen to Jesse Marsch and embrace your inner son of a bitch. How? It’s easy. Just look at this new Leeds United team.

They used to be a team of fine young men, led by the dignified and erudite Marcelo Bielsa, a man uniquely principled in the ugly world of modern football, a man too pure for the shallow, greedy domain of the Premier League. The corporation wore him down, and Leeds fans with it, as the masterpiece he had painted for three beautiful years slowly frayed to the point of breaking. It made me hate the game I was born to love, the idea that someone could create such a marvel, only for the soulless reality of elite football to crush its spirit.

With the sacking of Bielsa, Leeds wrote their own villain origin story. Premier League villains that is, and I don’t mean like that bunch managed by England’s second most overrated manager. We need someone to fight back against the Super League schemers and blood money types, a team that defies the strict standards of how non-big six clubs should present themselves, in the eyes of people like the Glazers. For a long time, we tried to preach the good word of Bielsa, to reject the excess of the Sky Sports era and avoid the sort of football you’d see at Molineux, but it didn’t work. They didn’t listen. So now, they get Jesse Marsch, Son of a Bitch-in-Chief.

It has been said that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but we’ve already tried in this division full of parasites, so now we’re smashing opponents with hefty tackles, as taught by our heroes of the past. After all, if you can’t beat them, just beat them! I loved supporting the team that occupied the moral high ground for almost four years, but the Premier League has shown us that achieving success through peaceful means isn’t possible without a blank cheque from the dodgy ruler of a corrupt state. So, unless Liz Truss wants to reconnect with her Leodensian roots, we’re doing it the hard way. Which, after all, is the Leeds way.

What constitutes a son of a bitch? Well, sons of bitches get their own back. Take Patrick Bamford for example. Pat’s a nice young man — too nice. He used to get pushed around by the likes of drink driving survivor and sometimes footballer Richard Keogh, and similar footballing brutes, but not anymore. On a recent trip to Australia, he found himself meeting the grass head first, needlessly pushed mid-air by Aston Villa’s Diego Carlos. In a friendly. Normally, Pat would have carried on with the game, afraid of coming across as a ‘My Dad will sue you’ type, but still confident enough to engage in polite discussion on the ethics of the matter. This time, he chose to try separating Carlos’ legs from his body, then hung around to explain to him why. Folks, that’s one stone-cold son of a bitch.

The energy drink fuelled Germanic pressing that Leeds plan to thrive on requires a certain individual. A son of a bitch who feasts on making life hell for their enemy. As Chelsea’s Édouard Mendy stood with the ball at his feet, looking up to discover his supposedly world class defenders imitating statues, he hadn’t even begun to process that something resembling a Tik Tok star was bearing down on him. This baby-faced demon, draped in what appeared to be a 19th century topsail, robbed him of the ball and scored. Brenden Aaronson may look like teen America’s next viral sensation, but he’s the next £100m footballer. Not to put any pressure on him. Being a true SOB isn’t about how hard you look, it’s about making AFCON winning captain and Napoli legend Kalidou Koulibaly wish he’d never left the Amalfi coast. Brendy presses with the intensity of a dog being let off its lead in a park, and he’s intelligent and ruthless enough to nick the ball from a goalie’s toes and score. On a separate note, sons of bitches will sing Brenden Aaronson’s name to the tune of Boogie Wonderland. So, jot that down. Thank you, let’s make this a thing, spice up the songbook.

When it comes to poor manners, a son of a bitch isn’t afraid to tell you to smarten up. Now, I’m not sure what Bruno Lage’s problem is. He’s got that TV movie Javier Bardem thing going on and a Wolves squad brimming with flair, yet he persists with a low rent Atletico Madrid style. He’s faced Jesse Marsch twice now, a man who’s all about fair play and definitely not kicking lumps out of opponents (though David Beckham might disagree). Once again, we beat Wolves despite their incessant whining and diving at the faintest sign of contact, which is being diplomatic about it. Lage took exception to losing, as usual, and forgot his manners at full-time, so Jesse reminded him by following him along the touchline and uttering some words that would get you thrown off Saturday Night Live. Sometimes a son of a bitch has to be the bad guy to stop the other bad guys, you know?

When it comes to a scrap, sons of bitches back their own, as Liam Kitching found out. Once an academy prospect at Thorp Arch, Kitching’s EFL odyssey has taken him as far as Barnsley, for whom he recently saw fit to judo flip young Cody Drameh in front of the South Stand. A bit much if you ask me, and it seems Illan Meslier and Leo Hjelde agree. A League Cup tie in late August is not where you expect to see such scuffling, but maybe Wednesday night’s alright for fighting too. Kitching’s tough guy moment evaporated in a flash when Hjelde got his hands on him and Meslier arrived, limbs akimbo, going gloves first behind Hjelde and helping to send the Barnsley manchild packing. Within a matter of seconds, backup arrived and it was clear Drameh wasn’t to be messed with. Special mention for Mateusz Klich, who got involved by walking up behind Kitching and managing to grab his attention, wind him up and walk away laughing. The more things change, eh? An OG SOB is our Mateusz.

If you think about it, being a son of a bitch has always been part of being a Leeds fan, consciously or not. It’s what made Neil Warnock an anagram and made Alex Smithies cry, and it’s why we spent more than a decade decrying the likes of Noel Hunt and Luke Varney. Leeds United were built on a diet of Keep Fighting and Side Before Self, principles the fanbase have held dear for more than half a century, so it’s no surprise we’re baying like spectators in the Colosseum at the first sign of anyone getting stuck in to Elland Road’s visitors.

Perhaps Marsch is hamstrung by his American literalism and the concept of footballing clichés are foreign to him, hence the kicking, fighting, passive aggressive emailing to other managers and outright shithousery on the behalf of his players. Or maybe he’s just like that. Either way, this Leeds team are at their best when there’s a bit of needle, a la Wolves and Chelsea, so I say keep them sons of bitches angry, Jesse. If we can have SOBs on the field and Fine Young Men off it, we might be onto something. ⬢

(This post is free to read from The Square Ball magazine — click here for the rest of 2022/23 issue 2)