Leedsunited.com 29/3/08
HELD AT HOME
UNITED 0, BRIGHTON 0
As expected, Gary McAllister named an unchanged side from the one which accounted for Walsall last weekend.
Brighton arrived on the back of a run that saw them two points clear of Leeds at kick-off, but it was the home side who threatened first when David Prutton saw a free-kick deflected to safety.
Tempers also flared after just seven minutes when Neil Kilkenny and Therry Racon traded pushes in the middle of the park.
United started brightly and came close to opening the scoring on 13 minutes. Dougie Freedman's shot from inside the box beat Brighton keeper Michel Kuipers, but Andrew Whing hacked it clear off the line.
Jonny Howson was next to go close when he tried his luck from distance and Freedman stabbed a shot wide on 21 minutes after a good delivery from Bradley Johnson.
United were enjoying a good spell and an unsighted Kuipers was relieved to see a Prutton shot fizz past the outside of the post.
A heavy downpour made conditions increasingly greasy, and the undercurrent between the two sides was never far away either. Five minutes before the break, Racon was booked after a clash with Freedman.
Alan Sheehan took the resultant free-kick and his well-struck shot drifted narrowly wide.
JoeLynch was next to concede a free-kick and pick up a yellow card when he tangled with Freedman on the edge of the box. That free-kick was scrambled clear after Johnson combined with Sheehan, and when Freedman returned the ball into the box, Kuipers had to be alert to push his shot over the top.
Brighton were now firmly on the back-foot - Howson tried his luck again moments before the interval with a shot from distance - but they managed one raid in time added on when Darren Kenton reacted well to clear.
It was United who started the second period strongly, though, and Jermaine Beckford shot wide after a Kenton cross. The striker also had a shot deflected wide.
Just seven minutes into the second period there was another melee involving players of both sides, and Sheehan was booked for a challenge on Racon.
But still United continued to threaten, Howson forcing Kuipers into an excellent save with a strike from distance.
Two minutes before the hour-mark, McAllister made an enforced change when a limping Johnson was replaced by Jonathan Douglas.
Brighton mounted a rare attack on 61 minutes, but United's reply came courtesy of a long kick from Casper Ankergren which found Freedman. The striker raced clear of the defenders but was denied by a vital touch from Kuipers.
Amazingly, the visitors had the ball in the net moments later, but the effort was disallowed for offside. And, they quickly fired another warning shot, returning the free-kick straight back downfield to Nicky Forster, who blazed his shot wide with only Ankergren to beat.
At the other end, Beckford lifted a shot over on 70 minutes after more good work by the persistent Kenton.
With 14 minutes left on the clock, McAllister made his second change, Tresor Kandol replacing Kilkenny to form a three-man front-line with Beckford and Freedman.
But it was Leeds who had some defending to do when Rui Marques cleared an inswinging free-kick from Kerry Mayo as Brighton looked to force an opening. In reply, Beckford tested Kuipers from just inside the box.
Brighton, who were making a strong finish, saw Steve Thomson lift a shot over the bar on 86 minutes and Marques did well to rob Forster on the flank.
Three minutes of added time gave both sides hope of snatching a winning goal and Kandol almost snatched it in the dying seconds, following a Beckford cross.
But the 0-0 draw ensured the status quo remained between the two sides, with Brighton two points clear of Leeds.
Guardian 29/3/08
The uphill task of righting Leeds wrongs
Louise Taylor
Saturday March 29, 2008
Integrity and Leeds United have often seemed strangers in recent years but Gary McAllister has made reacquainting the club with principles a hallmark of his return to Elland Road. Sitting behind the table where, mere months ago, Dennis Wise explained why his players needed to "be nastier", the man whose playmaking prowess helped Howard Wilkinson's Leeds become league champions in 1992 spelt out a radically - and refreshingly - different mission statement last week.
"I believe that, as coaches and managers, we have a duty to try and promote good football and help players play the game properly," insists McAllister, who maintains it is entirely feasible for Leeds to escape from League One this season without resorting to kick-and-rush or indulging in cynical gamesmanship.
Big on discipline, McAllister, who became manager at the end of January when Wise accepted a direction-changing, salary-tripling executive role with Newcastle United, has created a training-ground culture whereby first-team players virtually jump to hold doors open for visitors before volunteering greetings and directions. It all appears light years removed from the day, not so long ago, when a homebound Lee Bowyer gunned his BMW so ferociously that the guard manning the practice ground's security barrier had literally to dive for cover.
Back then Leeds were riding high in the Champions League, David O'Leary was deemed hot managerial property and the seeds of football's version of Northern Rock's collapse had already been sown at boardroom level. Nowadays the training base near Wetherby is a quieter place.
Unlike certain predecessors, McAllister, the club's seventh manager in six eventful years, has been warmly welcomed by fans who have idolised him since 1992. "We've had little dips but the supporters have been amazing," says the Scot, who regards that title triumph as the highlight of a career that also encompassed a stint with Coventry City and an Indian summer at Liverpool. "As a player I spent my best, and happiest, years here. I was in my prime and Leeds got into my blood."
The good times were not destined to endure. McAllister married in 1993 but only 10 years later resigned as Coventry's manager in order to look after Denise, by then terminally ill with breast cancer, and their two sons. She died in March 2006 and, bar some television punditry, the Leeds job marks his return to the outside world. Understandably, the recent past is not a period of his life he wishes to discuss. "What happened is something I keep very close to myself. I'm here to talk about football," he insists.
Since receiving a summons from Ken Bates, Leeds's owner, he has found the game all-consuming. "It's been a total blur. Time's flying by and I'm absolutely loving it," he says. "It took me two seconds to accept the offer. The lure of this club is so great I couldn't even begin to think about turning it down. It was a chance to help Leeds get back to where they should be."
Cynics suggested it was a poisoned chalice. Despite being docked 15 points by the Football League for abuses of its insolvency regulations last summer - a punishment currently the subject of an appeal, to be heard next month - newly relegated Leeds began this season strongly, taking League One by storm.
The points deficit suddenly looked immaterial as the team inexorably climbed the table, but then Gus Poyet, Wise's assistant, left for Tottenham Hotspur and results slipped. Discord between Wise and certain players resurfaced and few were heartbroken when he departed.
"I would say from the moment Gus left things weren't maybe going quite so well here," McAllister reflects. "I think Gus was very influential; I think he was a good go-between, a good buffer between the players and Dennis." So talk of dressing-room turbulence post-Poyet was well founded? "Yes," says McAllister, the traces of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "The players' mood was a bit sombre when I arrived."
Indeed, he did not see them win until his fifth appearance in the dugout but despite some average results - four draws and two defeats have balanced three wins under his management, leaving Leeds on the fringe of the play-off zone going into today's home game against Brighton - Elland Road regulars insist entertainment levels are gradually increasing.
"I absolutely believe that you can play passing football in League One," stresses the 43-year-old, whose judicious use of the loan system has enabled him to trim an unfeasibly large squad to about 20 while spicing up his attack by borrowing Dougie Freedman from Crystal Palace.
His essential belief in the beautiful game is combined with an appreciation of sports science and psychology garnered during seasons spent working with Wilkinson, Gordon Strachan and Gérard Houllier. "I'm into things like psychology, but I don't want to change too much too soon. I've just altered smaller things like the tempo of training and introduced a few discipline things."
Some are pinched from Houllier. "At Liverpool I sometimes wondered why, oh why, Gérard was so pernickety, but over time I realised that taking care of so many small things in training and preparation carries through into games.
"If you've been focused and disciplined all week you're more likely to stay disciplined when you're hanging on in the final few minutes of a vital match. It's all about setting standards - and here we've got to the stage of the season where the right mentality is going to play a big part."
Nonetheless McAllister remains far closer to Strachan - "I speak to him regularly; he's inspiring" - and Wilkinson than Houllier. "Howard's preparation was as meticulous as that of any manager I've come across," he says. "He was very similar to Gérard. He was ahead of his time and he's someone I can always pick up the phone to for a wee bit of advice."
Bates is currently taking legal advice about Leeds's impending appeal. Expert opinion seems divided as to the likely outcome but a compromise could conceivably be reached whereby Leeds would regain five points. Sensibly, McAllister flatly refuses to waste emotional energy poring over the potential permutations.
"I felt deducting 15 points was extremely harsh," he said. "But I've kept myself completely divorced from the issue. I have to focus on getting enough points to ensure we don't need any back. I've never heard players talking about the appeal and I don't want them discussing it. If they win promotion with all those points whacked off it would be an almighty achievement."
Yet even Championship football would not erase an indelible stain on the club's history. "Leeds United should be in Europe, not the third tier of English football," says McAllister. "But I can understand how it all went so wrong here. A lot of clubs have taken far too many incredible financial risks."
Some deemed his decision to return to football on a short-term contract an excessive gamble but McAllister, who enjoys a "very friendly" relationship with Bates and is expected to stay in charge next season, demurs. "I loved working with Sky, especially covering the Champions League, but the game's in my blood and I always wanted to come back into management. Television's great fun but the adrenaline is not the same; the feeling it produces is nothing like the feeling of winning a game of football. You can't recreate that anywhere."
Highs and lows
Scotland
Between 1990 and 1998 he won 57 caps and scored five goals, but his career may be remembered more for an incident he would rather forget - the penalty miss against England at Wembley in Euro 1996
Leicester City
After starting at Motherwell he went south in 1985. Leicester struggled in his first season and were relegated in 1987. When he left in 1990 he had scored 47 goals in 201 league games
Leeds United
He arrived after Leeds were promoted to the old First Division in 1990 and two years later helped them win the title in the last season before the Premier League started
Coventry City
Had two spells at Highfield Road, 1996-2000 and 2002-03. At the end of his first spell he surprised many by signing for Liverpool as a 35-year-old
Liverpool
Won the Uefa Cup, the League Cup and the FA Cup in 2001 before returning to Coventry, where he would later be manager. He was awarded an MBE while at Anfield
HELD AT HOME
UNITED 0, BRIGHTON 0
As expected, Gary McAllister named an unchanged side from the one which accounted for Walsall last weekend.
Brighton arrived on the back of a run that saw them two points clear of Leeds at kick-off, but it was the home side who threatened first when David Prutton saw a free-kick deflected to safety.
Tempers also flared after just seven minutes when Neil Kilkenny and Therry Racon traded pushes in the middle of the park.
United started brightly and came close to opening the scoring on 13 minutes. Dougie Freedman's shot from inside the box beat Brighton keeper Michel Kuipers, but Andrew Whing hacked it clear off the line.
Jonny Howson was next to go close when he tried his luck from distance and Freedman stabbed a shot wide on 21 minutes after a good delivery from Bradley Johnson.
United were enjoying a good spell and an unsighted Kuipers was relieved to see a Prutton shot fizz past the outside of the post.
A heavy downpour made conditions increasingly greasy, and the undercurrent between the two sides was never far away either. Five minutes before the break, Racon was booked after a clash with Freedman.
Alan Sheehan took the resultant free-kick and his well-struck shot drifted narrowly wide.
JoeLynch was next to concede a free-kick and pick up a yellow card when he tangled with Freedman on the edge of the box. That free-kick was scrambled clear after Johnson combined with Sheehan, and when Freedman returned the ball into the box, Kuipers had to be alert to push his shot over the top.
Brighton were now firmly on the back-foot - Howson tried his luck again moments before the interval with a shot from distance - but they managed one raid in time added on when Darren Kenton reacted well to clear.
It was United who started the second period strongly, though, and Jermaine Beckford shot wide after a Kenton cross. The striker also had a shot deflected wide.
Just seven minutes into the second period there was another melee involving players of both sides, and Sheehan was booked for a challenge on Racon.
But still United continued to threaten, Howson forcing Kuipers into an excellent save with a strike from distance.
Two minutes before the hour-mark, McAllister made an enforced change when a limping Johnson was replaced by Jonathan Douglas.
Brighton mounted a rare attack on 61 minutes, but United's reply came courtesy of a long kick from Casper Ankergren which found Freedman. The striker raced clear of the defenders but was denied by a vital touch from Kuipers.
Amazingly, the visitors had the ball in the net moments later, but the effort was disallowed for offside. And, they quickly fired another warning shot, returning the free-kick straight back downfield to Nicky Forster, who blazed his shot wide with only Ankergren to beat.
At the other end, Beckford lifted a shot over on 70 minutes after more good work by the persistent Kenton.
With 14 minutes left on the clock, McAllister made his second change, Tresor Kandol replacing Kilkenny to form a three-man front-line with Beckford and Freedman.
But it was Leeds who had some defending to do when Rui Marques cleared an inswinging free-kick from Kerry Mayo as Brighton looked to force an opening. In reply, Beckford tested Kuipers from just inside the box.
Brighton, who were making a strong finish, saw Steve Thomson lift a shot over the bar on 86 minutes and Marques did well to rob Forster on the flank.
Three minutes of added time gave both sides hope of snatching a winning goal and Kandol almost snatched it in the dying seconds, following a Beckford cross.
But the 0-0 draw ensured the status quo remained between the two sides, with Brighton two points clear of Leeds.
Guardian 29/3/08
The uphill task of righting Leeds wrongs
Louise Taylor
Saturday March 29, 2008
Integrity and Leeds United have often seemed strangers in recent years but Gary McAllister has made reacquainting the club with principles a hallmark of his return to Elland Road. Sitting behind the table where, mere months ago, Dennis Wise explained why his players needed to "be nastier", the man whose playmaking prowess helped Howard Wilkinson's Leeds become league champions in 1992 spelt out a radically - and refreshingly - different mission statement last week.
"I believe that, as coaches and managers, we have a duty to try and promote good football and help players play the game properly," insists McAllister, who maintains it is entirely feasible for Leeds to escape from League One this season without resorting to kick-and-rush or indulging in cynical gamesmanship.
Big on discipline, McAllister, who became manager at the end of January when Wise accepted a direction-changing, salary-tripling executive role with Newcastle United, has created a training-ground culture whereby first-team players virtually jump to hold doors open for visitors before volunteering greetings and directions. It all appears light years removed from the day, not so long ago, when a homebound Lee Bowyer gunned his BMW so ferociously that the guard manning the practice ground's security barrier had literally to dive for cover.
Back then Leeds were riding high in the Champions League, David O'Leary was deemed hot managerial property and the seeds of football's version of Northern Rock's collapse had already been sown at boardroom level. Nowadays the training base near Wetherby is a quieter place.
Unlike certain predecessors, McAllister, the club's seventh manager in six eventful years, has been warmly welcomed by fans who have idolised him since 1992. "We've had little dips but the supporters have been amazing," says the Scot, who regards that title triumph as the highlight of a career that also encompassed a stint with Coventry City and an Indian summer at Liverpool. "As a player I spent my best, and happiest, years here. I was in my prime and Leeds got into my blood."
The good times were not destined to endure. McAllister married in 1993 but only 10 years later resigned as Coventry's manager in order to look after Denise, by then terminally ill with breast cancer, and their two sons. She died in March 2006 and, bar some television punditry, the Leeds job marks his return to the outside world. Understandably, the recent past is not a period of his life he wishes to discuss. "What happened is something I keep very close to myself. I'm here to talk about football," he insists.
Since receiving a summons from Ken Bates, Leeds's owner, he has found the game all-consuming. "It's been a total blur. Time's flying by and I'm absolutely loving it," he says. "It took me two seconds to accept the offer. The lure of this club is so great I couldn't even begin to think about turning it down. It was a chance to help Leeds get back to where they should be."
Cynics suggested it was a poisoned chalice. Despite being docked 15 points by the Football League for abuses of its insolvency regulations last summer - a punishment currently the subject of an appeal, to be heard next month - newly relegated Leeds began this season strongly, taking League One by storm.
The points deficit suddenly looked immaterial as the team inexorably climbed the table, but then Gus Poyet, Wise's assistant, left for Tottenham Hotspur and results slipped. Discord between Wise and certain players resurfaced and few were heartbroken when he departed.
"I would say from the moment Gus left things weren't maybe going quite so well here," McAllister reflects. "I think Gus was very influential; I think he was a good go-between, a good buffer between the players and Dennis." So talk of dressing-room turbulence post-Poyet was well founded? "Yes," says McAllister, the traces of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "The players' mood was a bit sombre when I arrived."
Indeed, he did not see them win until his fifth appearance in the dugout but despite some average results - four draws and two defeats have balanced three wins under his management, leaving Leeds on the fringe of the play-off zone going into today's home game against Brighton - Elland Road regulars insist entertainment levels are gradually increasing.
"I absolutely believe that you can play passing football in League One," stresses the 43-year-old, whose judicious use of the loan system has enabled him to trim an unfeasibly large squad to about 20 while spicing up his attack by borrowing Dougie Freedman from Crystal Palace.
His essential belief in the beautiful game is combined with an appreciation of sports science and psychology garnered during seasons spent working with Wilkinson, Gordon Strachan and Gérard Houllier. "I'm into things like psychology, but I don't want to change too much too soon. I've just altered smaller things like the tempo of training and introduced a few discipline things."
Some are pinched from Houllier. "At Liverpool I sometimes wondered why, oh why, Gérard was so pernickety, but over time I realised that taking care of so many small things in training and preparation carries through into games.
"If you've been focused and disciplined all week you're more likely to stay disciplined when you're hanging on in the final few minutes of a vital match. It's all about setting standards - and here we've got to the stage of the season where the right mentality is going to play a big part."
Nonetheless McAllister remains far closer to Strachan - "I speak to him regularly; he's inspiring" - and Wilkinson than Houllier. "Howard's preparation was as meticulous as that of any manager I've come across," he says. "He was very similar to Gérard. He was ahead of his time and he's someone I can always pick up the phone to for a wee bit of advice."
Bates is currently taking legal advice about Leeds's impending appeal. Expert opinion seems divided as to the likely outcome but a compromise could conceivably be reached whereby Leeds would regain five points. Sensibly, McAllister flatly refuses to waste emotional energy poring over the potential permutations.
"I felt deducting 15 points was extremely harsh," he said. "But I've kept myself completely divorced from the issue. I have to focus on getting enough points to ensure we don't need any back. I've never heard players talking about the appeal and I don't want them discussing it. If they win promotion with all those points whacked off it would be an almighty achievement."
Yet even Championship football would not erase an indelible stain on the club's history. "Leeds United should be in Europe, not the third tier of English football," says McAllister. "But I can understand how it all went so wrong here. A lot of clubs have taken far too many incredible financial risks."
Some deemed his decision to return to football on a short-term contract an excessive gamble but McAllister, who enjoys a "very friendly" relationship with Bates and is expected to stay in charge next season, demurs. "I loved working with Sky, especially covering the Champions League, but the game's in my blood and I always wanted to come back into management. Television's great fun but the adrenaline is not the same; the feeling it produces is nothing like the feeling of winning a game of football. You can't recreate that anywhere."
Highs and lows
Scotland
Between 1990 and 1998 he won 57 caps and scored five goals, but his career may be remembered more for an incident he would rather forget - the penalty miss against England at Wembley in Euro 1996
Leicester City
After starting at Motherwell he went south in 1985. Leicester struggled in his first season and were relegated in 1987. When he left in 1990 he had scored 47 goals in 201 league games
Leeds United
He arrived after Leeds were promoted to the old First Division in 1990 and two years later helped them win the title in the last season before the Premier League started
Coventry City
Had two spells at Highfield Road, 1996-2000 and 2002-03. At the end of his first spell he surprised many by signing for Liverpool as a 35-year-old
Liverpool
Won the Uefa Cup, the League Cup and the FA Cup in 2001 before returning to Coventry, where he would later be manager. He was awarded an MBE while at Anfield