Leeds United board's unprecedented £200m gamble revealed as Whites abandon familiar territory - YEP 6/5/23
Leeds United are in unfamiliar territory, not only because this is a post-Victor Orta landscape, but because no Premier League club has ever gone this way before.
Joe Donnohue
Sam Allardyce is longer in the tooth than all but one
Premier League manager and into his ninth job as a top flight boss. Leeds fans
– and club hierarchy – will hope the 68-year-old’s experience on and off the
pitch can yield positive results in their four remaining fixtures this season,
but even with his relegation-avoiding track record, it is an almighty gamble.
United’s ‘Big Sam’ Hail Mary is unprecedented. Over the past
ten seasons, only three times has a club changed managers with fewer than four
games to go. On each occasion, the outgoing boss was replaced by a caretaker,
someone from within the club. In 2020, Nigel Pearson was sacked by Watford and
supplanted by caretaker Hayden Mullins, despite having given the Hornets a
fighting chance of survival. Mullins was unable to prevent defeats by Man City
and Arsenal in their final two games of the season, leaving Watford playing
Championship football the following year.
In 2016, Roberto Martinez left Everton in mid-table with a
single fixture remaining, replaced by David Unsworth who was put in caretaker
charge after a disappointing defeat by – as luck would have it – Allardyce’s
Sunderland. And ten years ago, this weekend’s opponents Man City parted with
title-winning coach Roberto Mancini after losing out to Wigan Athletic in the
FA Cup Final. Caretaker Brian Kidd guided the team through their final two
league encounters before handing the reins to Manuel Pellegrini.
Allardyce was involved in another late-season dugout
reshuffle after resigning from his post as Bolton Wanderers manager in 2007
with three matches of the 2006/07 campaign remaining. Long-time assistant Sammy
Lee stood in for the larger-than-life former centre-half, who subsequently
replaced Glenn Roeder at Newcastle United some weeks later.
Meanwhile, in May 2000, Wimbledon’s Terry Burton replaced
Egil Olsen with two rounds of Premier League matches remaining that season,
before going on to lead the south London club the following year, but Burton
too was an inside man initially installed as caretaker. Likewise, Ray Lewington’s
three-game stint as Crystal Palace boss in May 1998 following Attilio
Lombardo’s ill-fated spell saw the well-travelled coach promoted from within.
An external hire such as Allardyce’s at this stage of the
season is not only brave but has never been done before, and the next four
games will determine it a success or not. Given this is the Whites’ fourth
coach – caretaker or otherwise – of 2023, this was one of a dwindling number of
options they were yet to try.
It is an experiment which could prove to be worth an
additional £200 million to chairman and majority shareholder Andrea Radrizzani,
who is expected to sell his controlling stake to minority partner 49ers
Enterprises for a reported £400 million if the club remain in the Premier
League - a large chunk of which has already changed hands owing to the 49ers’
existing 44 per cent.
If the team are relegated, questions remain over
Radrizzani's contentment to relinquish control at a discounted rate, but if a
sale is to go through this summer and Leeds gear up for 2023/24 as a
Championship club, suffice to say an additional £200 million will not flood
into Radrizzani’s account from his boardroom partners.
Allardyce’s appointment is a gamble of epic proportions, one
which the club are not too proud to shy away from. The message it sends, from
within Elland Road, is that their project, the long-term plans spoken of by the
likes of Radrizzani and chief executive Angus Kinnear, are a thing of the past;
they are focused squarely on the next four games.
