The play’s the thing

“The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables,” comes the sulking complaint from Hamlet, as his mother weds a rotter before the dust has settled on his father’s coffin.

In February 2022, Leeds United fans had cause to identify with the Prince of Denmark. When loss brings your heart to a stuttering stop, it jars to see the world go on, refusing to standstill alongside you. The knowledge that a succession plan was in place for months before Marcelo Bielsa’s dismissal felt insidious, a betrayal, out of the order of things. But with just six days standing between Leeds and an empty technical box at the King Power Stadium, there wasn’t time to pack up the moon and dismantle the sun since, like the state of Denmark, the wheels of football keep on turning.

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