Leeds United's McDermott is even sounding like Warnock now!

It didn't take long. Poor Father Brian is losing his sangfroid already and beginning to talk Old Big Gob gibberish. Listen to him as he mutters, " I said to the players, the worst thing that can happen has happened. They lost. That’s it. I give them the license to make things happen." If that's not Warnockesque bollocks, I don't know what is!

With the water already up beyond his ears, Brian is learning that he can't walk on water after all. Gone is the measured composure of a man who knows he was born to succeed, and in it's place are the ravings of a confused man trying to make sense of his exposed limitations.

Of course nobody is going to blame him yet. Unlike Allardyce at West Ham, a man reviled even as he led the club to promotion, McDermott has a reservoir of good will to draw upon, if only because he replaced the detested Warnock. Brian has said all the right things up until now, so it will take a few more defeats before the Leeds fans throw their toys out of the pram and turn on him, and GFH Capital will rightly be their first target for bile.

Three defeats in four games have illustrated perfectly the short sightedness or short change-edness of the Arab Bank Built on Sand. McDermott was desperate for three players before the window closed, a centre back, a winger and a striker, but his Arab employers would only invest a pittance - so McDermott snatched at Wootton and left himself desperately short of attacking options. The consequences are now, of course, painfully evident.

QPR are already pulling clear of Leeds and Watford look as if they are finding their form. Automatic promotion was always a long shot, but now only the optimistic would see the playoffs as a realistic prospect. "Steady progress" might see Leeds finish eighth, but what use is that exactly?