Leeds United chairman Andrea Radrizzani has backed the club’s Twitter post which has led to a stream of abusive comments aimed at pundit Karen Carney.
Ahead of Leeds’ match with West Brom on Tuesday night, former England Women’s international Carney suggested Leeds benefitted from the Covid-19 break when earning promotion to the Premier League last season.
“They (Leeds) out-run everyone and credit to them,” Carney said during Amazon Prime Sport’s pre-match coverage. “My only concern would be, ‘would they blow up at the end of the season?’
“We saw that in the last couple of seasons and I actually think they got promoted because of Covid in terms of it gave them a bit of respite. I don’t know whether they would have gone up if they didn’t have that break.”
Carney was making reference to “Bielsa burnout”, a term coined from the fact some Marcelo Bielsa-led sides in the past have suffered from fatigue later in the season due to the coach’s high-tempo tactics.
In 2011-12, Bielsa steered Athletic Bilbao up to fifth in La Liga by March 2012, but they faded and finished the season 10th. Similarly at Marseille in 2014-15, his side were top after 19 games but ended the Ligue 1 season in fourth.
Following a three-month hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Bielsa’s Leeds went on to emphatically seal promotion as champions in July, finishing 10 points ahead of runners-up West Brom in the Championship table.
Having been in a strong position to secure promotion before the pandemic, a member of the club’s social media team opted to point out this gap at the top when tagging “Prime Video Sport” in a Twitter post which featured a video of Carney’s comments.
As of Wednesday morning, the post has been viewed more than three million times and received almost nine thousand retweets, while ex-Leeds and Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has been among those calling for the club to delete the post.
However, the club have appeared to double down on their stance with chairman Radrizzani taking “responsibility” for the tweet.
When tagged in a post claiming “Leeds United should be ashamed”, Radrizzani replied that he found Carney’s comments “completely unnecessary and disrespectful”.
He said: “I take the responsibility of the club tweet. I consider that comment completely unnecessary and disrespectful to our club and particularly to the fantastic hard work of our players and coaches whom were understanding on the pitch for the last two Championship seasons by all stats.”
Radrizzani retweeted the original post from the club’s account himself, and also a quote tweet from Leeds player Ben White, who used three “crying laughing” emojis in response to Carney’s comments.
Carney, who has seen abusive and sexually discriminatory comments directed at her on the social media platform, is yet to respond to the post publicly.
Follow i sport on Facebook for more Premier League news, interviews and features
More on the Premier League
- Sam Johnstone tells Sam Cunningham why he is finally ready to become a Premier League star
- The making of Timo Werner: How his father’s motivation and ‘scary’ power meant Chelsea star was always destined for the top
- Eric Dier reveals why he stormed into the stands to confront an abusive Spurs fan
- Daniel Storey: How to lose supporters and alienate Messi, by FC Barcelona
- An apology to Man Utd’s Jesse Lingard
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3b1gcgq
Post a Comment