Allardyce knows what he’s got into – and Leeds are (almost) bending to his will - The Athletic 14/5/23

Phil Hay

There is a scene in the film Bad Santa in which the kid who takes to stalking Billy Bob Thornton’s character Willie T Soke tells him he wants a pink stuffed elephant for Christmas. But the boy’s father is in jail, Soke is a social catastrophe and the request is met with, well, a touch of realism. “Wish in one hand, shit in the other,” Soke says. “See which one fills up first.”

So there was Sam Allardyce on Thursday, making wishes of his own with a football team who are not exactly awash with available pink stuffed elephants. Don’t lose on Saturday, he told Leeds United. Don’t let Newcastle United score first at Elland Road. If Newcastle do score, first goal or otherwise, don’t let one become four. And above all else, give yourselves a chance of pulling a rabbit out of the hat on the last day of the season. Take it all the way.

One match in and already he had figured Leeds out: a club where a manager can be certain of nothing and confident of little. Allardyce being Allardyce, he would doubtless have loved to play games with the Premier League by claiming his squad had it under control, that they would give Newcastle the treatment, crack the odds and surge out of the pit they were in. But he knows the sport, and a brief look behind the door had warned him not to ask too much. Realism was there in his comments, some doubt about which hand would fill up.

Allardyce knows more about Leeds too, the maddening world the club inhabits, now that yesterday’s first half against Newcastle is behind him. The team do his bidding and go 1-0 up, Luke Ayling drilling in the scraps from a Rodrigo header. They win a penalty and Patrick Bamford gets his hands on it but whatever confidence Bamford tries to exude, his football is showing not a lot. The effort is weak, Nick Pope repels it and, within seconds, Newcastle have one of their own which Callum Wilson buries in textbook style into the bottom corner. It’s 1-1 and the ground is shellshocked. Welcome to the padded cell, Sam.

If this deflates Allardyce, then no wonder. He has picked an unconventional midfield, with Robin Koch the linchpin in it, and a goal to the good means Leeds can sit in, hold steady, frustrate. The equaliser changes everything. But Allardyce was clear beforehand that however it went, there could be no capitulation. Even if Newcastle did get out of Elland Road with the win they would inevitably go for, it should not be the procession that Crystal Palace and Liverpool enjoyed here shortly before Allardyce’s towering frame landed. This is where he wants some nerve, something which lets Leeds feed off the crowd. He jokes that afterwards, he sank two Valium tablets.

Why Bamford has taken the penalty is confounding everyone. Rodrigo has been the finisher this season, the closest thing Leeds have to a prolific forward. Rodrigo is well ahead of his numbers in expected goals calculations. Bamford is lagging behind his and has been chasing the tail of his old form for two years. Bamford has already missed a penalty this season, another important one in a 1-0 defeat to Arsenal, and his body language is unconvincing. Chaos follows and, at the end of it, the game finishes 2-2 but that miss might be telling. Allardyce’s teams are never easy to bully. They are invariably much harder to bully with a 2-0 lead and a good cushion to defend.

“I left (the penalty-taker hierarchy) how it was before I got here,” Allardyce said. “I haven’t seen them take that many penalties. It is what it is.

“I would have thought that if Rodrigo really wanted it he’d have gone and snatched it off Patrick and said ‘I’m taking this’. We see that quite a bit. But it can happen to anybody and it happened to us at the worst possible time.

“The scoreline should have been a victory for us. We shot ourselves in the foot quite often. It’s our fault today.”

The absence of a capitulation is something to hold on to though. Newcastle have Champions League qualification teasing them and everything about them says a point at Elland Road is not enough. They go ahead midway through the second half when Junior Firpo handles a high cross, taking the ball off Alexander Isak’s head. Firpo’s afternoon is a nightmare in waking hours, ending in a red card for a late foul on Anthony Gordon. Wilson sticks the second penalty away for Newcastle, just as confidently as his first. But they need a third and they cannot get it, and they can do nothing when Rasmus Kristensen’s shot deflects off Kieran Trippier’s head, flying inside a post 11 minutes from the end.

Allardyce is angry about the first penalty. Angry that, despite warning all week, Max Wober went off his feet and brought down Isak. But other parts of the game are mission accomplished in comparison to what he wanted. Leeds had the first goal. Leeds kept their skin from being flayed. Leeds have their point. Which leaves only one more box for Allardyce to tick, which surely he will.

“I have to say this at this moment in time, I want to be still in it when we play Tottenham (on the season’s last day),” he said on Thursday. “That’s what I want. I’ll be very satisfied if when we play Tottenham, we’re still in it.”

And from here, that last-gasp shoot-for-the-moon chance might be there for him in a fortnight’s time.

Just.

Wish in one hand…