Right. So let me get this straight. Daniel Farke, manager of Leeds United, a club currently scrapping for Premier League survival, relaxes by reading Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude on his sofa.

One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Has he tried supporting Leeds? That's a hundred and four years of solitude and counting.

In my day, managers didn't read literary fiction. They read the back page of the Mirror, a laminated set piece sheet, and maybe the menu at the local carvery if they were feeling intellectual. That was your lot. Nobody was sitting about discussing magical realism when there was a shape to drill and a goalkeeper who couldn't catch a cold.

But here we are. Farke has an MA in economics, a diploma in sporting directorship, and apparently a subscription to Waterstones. The man is more qualified than half the cabinet. And yet Leeds are in a relegation fight. Funny how that works.

Don't get me started on the FA Cup quarter final at West Ham. Farke himself called the Premier League "our bread and butter." Which is manager speak for "I'm going to play the reserves and hope nobody notices." We've all heard it before. Every gaffer who's ever had two competitions and one decent squad has trotted out the bread and butter line. It's the footballing equivalent of saying "it's not you, it's me" to a competition you're about to dump.

And look, he's probably right. Staying up is worth roughly nine hundred billion pounds in TV money or whatever obscene number it is these days. Winning the FA Cup gets you a trophy, a parade, and about forty quid from the prize fund. The maths isn't complicated. You don't need an MA in economics for that one, Daniel.

But here's what bothers me. Leeds haven't been in an FA Cup semi final since 1987. Nineteen eighty seven. That's nearly forty years. There are Leeds fans who have been born, grown up, had kids of their own, watched those kids grow up, and still never seen their club in the last four of the oldest cup competition in the world. And Farke's sat there weighing it up like it's a balance sheet exercise.

That's the problem with modern football. Everything is a spreadsheet. Everything is risk assessment. Nobody just goes for it anymore. Nobody says "sod the league for ninety minutes, let's go and win something." When I was managing, if we drew a big cup tie, the lads were buzzing. The whole town was buzzing. You didn't rest players. You picked your best eleven and you had a proper go. Because cup runs are what fans remember. Nobody remembers finishing fourteenth. They remember Wembley.

But Farke's reading Márquez, so maybe he sees football differently to the rest of us. Maybe he sees the beautiful game as one long fever dream of unreliable narrators and cyclical suffering. To be fair, that is what supporting Leeds is like.

The article says he loves being "transported to different worlds through literary fiction." Mate, you're managing Leeds United in a relegation battle with a cup quarter final at the London Stadium. You're already living in a different world. You don't need a book for that.

I'll tell you what my favourite book was when I was managing. It was the fixture list. Because that told you everything you needed to know. Who's next, when are they coming, and have we got a centre half fit. That was my literary fiction. Gripping stuff, every August.

Good luck to Farke. Genuinely. I hope Leeds stay up and I hope they have a go in the cup. But I also hope he finishes that Márquez book soon. Because if results don't improve, the only solitude he'll be experiencing is the kind that comes with a P45 and a long drive back to Germany.

In my day, the only Garcia a manager knew was Ricky Garcia who ran the chip van outside the ground.

Better times.