So now the dust has settled…what on earth WAS that?

Having personally never witnessed such a swift descent from dominance to capitulation, albeit with a slight spoonful of sugar spiking the bitter medicine at the death, I don’t reckon I can find rational ways to explain our beloved side’s magnetic relationship with disaster anymore. So I’m leaning heavily towards conspiracy.

Something strange is happening, largely to our defensive stock, but we have to move on from the gypsy curse in search of ridiculous yet plausible-within-the-field-of-football-irrationality explanations. Since this here internet is the home of wild speculation that stretches the realms of plausibility, I’m going to throw some theories out there:

Players’ Bates protest

Have the Bates Out protests finally seeped into the mentality of our playing squad? Are working conditions so arduous under the bearded one that the only way the players’ plight can be driven home to those witnessing is through hopeless tracking of forwards and needless hacks down in the penalty box?

Bates’ protest against Bates protests

In our frustration, it’s very easy to be tempted to start believing that Bates runs the club like an iron-fisted all-powerful evil overlord. If this is indeed the case, you could make a leap of faith and conclude that Bates has ordered the players, under pain of death and threats of having to attend even more events at the offices of low-grade corporate sponsors, that they must punish the revolting morons with kamikaze defensive antics.

Saboteurs

It’s fair to say that the majority of the football-following population hold strong antipathy to the Leeds cause. It’s therefore feasible that there are Leeds-hating moles in our playing and coaching staff. Life-long Leeds fan are you Leigh? A watertight cover indeed…

Asian betting syndicates

With our oft-cited rigid wage structure, it’s maybe time to consider the possibility that our squad may be vulnerable to greed-driven purposeful capitulation. Maybe I’m being unkind and not a little racist to Asians, too – corruption finds a warm reception all over the shop these days, not least in football’s official governing bodies. To clarify: I’m not suggesting we’re throwing away leads for Sepp Blatter’s entertainment and enrichment, what I’m saying is what’s your basic before tax, Leigh?

Gandhian coaching strategy

“Right lads – new approach we’re trying for tomorrow’s game: passive resistance. It’s a bit like zonal marking.”

Unfortunately, those forces of repression, the Mackail-Smiths and Marvin Emnes’ of the world, refuse olive branches and take more of a cosh and tear gas approach. Our considered philosophy is out of step with a brutal division.

‘The Poyet Effect’

Like some kind of South American Charles Manson figure, perhaps we’re dealing with defenders remaining from the League One era who remain in the thrall of the much-hyped Uruguayan coaching maestro, willing to destroy themselves and others for him. This theory is clearly undermined by the fact we’ve been defending (almost) as badly as that all season, but hey.

Conceptual art piece

From a neutral’s perspective, it’s certainly more interesting a spectacle than that Zidane film or anything by Tracey Emin.

The gypsy curse

Ok, I know I said we should move on from this in search of explanations for calamity. But thought I’d stick it in for those older and wiser fans than I, for whom such a theory may hold long-burning romance and credibility.

None of the above

Maybe you’re not a fan of relentless singling out one player with various slurs against character. Maybe you just think we’ve simply got an extremely tin-pot coaching set up for such a proud club or that we just haven’t brought in or brought through any competent defenders. Maybe you despise repeated, lazy use of the rhetorical question and the word maybe.

But whatever we’re dealing with here, be it corruption, confusion, crap coaching or an even more elaborate conspiracy, there is only one cleaner-than-clean, defensive superhero that can tackle all of the above: enter, Coach Radebe.