After the chop-n-change manager culture at Elland Road under madcap Italian supremo Massimo Cellino, Garry Monk’s arrival brought stability and improvement.
Before the former Swansea boss arrived at Elland Road, it was a veritable revolving door of managers such as David Hockaday, Darko Milanic and Uwe Rosler all took the helm of the West Yorkshire club. They were all chewed out by Cellino before relative orderliness was brought in the shape of Steve Evans.
It was Evans who gave way to Monk, a manager who steered the Whites from Evans’ 10th-place rescue job into a long playoff spot run and eventual 7th-place season end. However, the rolling deal offered to Monk meant that he didn’t stay at Elland Road, instead he headed up the A1 to Teesside and Middlesbrough.
That also meant that long-term assistant Pep Clotet left Elland Road. It also led to a splitting of ways with Clotet heading to Oxford United for his first managerial job in English football. That separation didn’t last, the pair being reunited at Birmingham City.
Monk didn’t last the distance there, being sacked after disappointing results. However, his ten-assistant Clotet remained and was promoted to manager of the St Andrews outfit. This scenario raised its ugly head in terms of this week’s match-up that reunited Birmingham boss Clotet with his old boss Monk, now managing Sheffield Wednesday.
Gary Monk is not a fan of his former assistant manager & now Birmingham manager Pep Clotet 👀 pic.twitter.com/x1iXPM8eS5
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) November 26, 2019
Despite Monk’s slights on Clotet, his former assistant hit back. Clotet claimed that it was he who’d sacrificed his interests in faithfully following Monk from job to job. He went as far as to indicate that when pointing out that he felt compelled to leave Leeds United after Monk walked away.
Speaking on this point, Clotet said: “With Garry, all those five years together, it was very clear that I always put his interests before mine. I was very clear at Swansea, I was very clear in Leeds where it was fantastic and it was like a honeymoon, and for me it would have been unbelievable to stay but that was not possible because of his problems.”
After the 1-1 draw between Monk’s Sheffield Wednesday and Clotet’s Birmingham City, Owls boss Monk refused to shake the hand of his former protege Clotet. This act, an act of basic civility, seems to add to what is an already festering undercurrent between the two – a poisonous atmosphere if you will.
