Smiles might be a bit too much to ask for, but Javi Gracia has praised the character of the senior Leeds United players he is snubbing. The likes of Rodrigo, Liam Cooper and Rasmus Kristensen have been left out of several recent line-ups under the new head coach.
For Rodrigo and Cooper especially, this season’s top scorer and club captain respectively, it must have proved hard to still be waiting for a start under Gracia. Injuries have of course put them behind many of their team-mates, but the former’s been in the last five squads and the latter in the last four.
Asked last week, ahead of the Crystal Palace drubbing, about the difficulty of telling senior players they would be left out game after game, Gracia praised their behaviour. The Spaniard admitted he was not greeted with smiles, but at least a continued support for those on the pitch from the bench and the stands.
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“It's difficult when the players you have don't understand many things, but I can tell you I have, first of all, very good professionals and they accept all my decisions,” he said. “And always with, I don’t tell you a smile, but with good spirit because they only have one objective: trying to help the team.
“Then after, for sure all of them want to play more. After the [Nottingham Forest] game, yesterday, one of the first things I did was thank all the players [for] the behaviour they had in all the time we've been together, always trying to push the team from the bench, from the stands.
“It gives us something different maybe with other clubs. I don't know in other teams what is happening, but what I feel is we have a very good atmosphere and I'm sure it will help us to get our objective.”
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