Former national coach Sam Allardyce has admitted ruefully the motivational skills which endorsed his name in management were not enough to get the best out of the Leeds United squad he inherited, nor did they successfully transfer what they did in training into matches.
The Whites were ultimately relegated from the Premier League on Sunday after three glorious seasons of flourishing under Marcelo Bielsa-enabled Premier League environs, with their 68-year-old interim manager admitting the mental state of the squad may have been more fragile than he had anticipated when taking the job without the luxury of adequate time to do proper due diligence.
After comfortably outplaying relegation rivals Nottingham Forest on April 4, they they looked in good stead to retain their top-flight status but floundered only four days later in a 5-1 defeat to Crystal Palace and never won another game all season. They eventually landed in 13th place, looking deceptively safe in such a tight league table, with only two points separating them from the bottom three.
Allardyce, a seasoned campaigner when it comes to rescuing teams from relegation, was brought in with just four matches to play and managed to secure just a point from these fixtures.
The urgency of the situation meant his decision to take the job was based more on the stature and history of the club than a proper assessment of his chances of success with the squad.
In the final game of the season even victory over Tottenham would not have saved them as it was all more about the attitude they never had to win big matches when it mattered most.
“We’ve had legendary players with the experience of Eddie (Gray), Gordon (Strachan) and Gary McAllister talking to them about the football club and they’ve commented about how the players in training looked really up for it in training, really enthusiastic and ready to go so you think you’ve lifted the mood and got players in the right frame of mind but actually on the pitch unfortunately that hasn’t materialized into a more consistent performance over the four games.
“I haven’t been able to achieve even one win which makes me really, really disappointed in myself as well as everybody else because I thought we could have.”
It is now incumbent upon Leeds to expedite the search for their fourth new manager since sacking the highly-revered Marcelo Bielsa in February 2022.
Awkwardly, on this subject, Allardyce did not rule himself in or out, apart from saying on Sunday that there had been no conversations with the board about anything beyond the season just ended.