Leeds United: Uncertainty is the only certainty for a club in limbo - The Athletic 22/5/23

By Phil Hay

Up in the heights of the London Stadium sat a group of Leeds United supporters in Sam Allardyce masks, fancy dress on the go on a day which needed some levity. As paper-thin as his opportunity to manage the club looked — four games and do what you can — it still had the potential to earn him a little cult following in their patch of Yorkshire.

Down on the touchline at West Ham, halfway through the first half, Allardyce stumbled across a stray £5 note by his technical area but if he thought the find meant his luck was in, it could end up being all the extra he earns in pursuit of survival. A bonus was riding on the avoidance of relegation but nobody would stake that fiver on him or Leeds dabbling in miracles.

Cult potential has evaporated. Leeds are on the brink. Not even he could pretend that survival next weekend would represent a triumph of coaching.

It was never meant to be, Big Sam in charge of a team whose football once made Leeds a city of culture, but there comes a day when a means to an end is worth a go; when a Weston McKennie long throw volleyed in by Rodrigo — route one yielding the first goal at West Ham, Allardyce’s tactics stereotyped — is possible to love in a one-night-stand kind of way because when trouble looms, any solution will do. But outside West Ham after a 3-1 defeat, an Allardyce face mask was strewn on the concourse, tossed away, unwanted, no home to go to. Game over, or so it seemed.

There is, of course, chance in anything but any club who go into the final weekend with 31 points and no wins in eight have no right to anything, and survival least of all. Even if Leeds and Allardyce somehow pull it off against Tottenham next Sunday, the image that remains will be of ethereal appearance like yesterday’s at West Ham when, in the midst of a urine-weak second half, it seemed like Leeds needed reminding of their predicament, of the time on the clock in the last-chance saloon. You’re close to going down, boys. This one could be terminal. Anyone for an onslaught?

Allardyce is regarded as a motivator, someone who could gee up a dead body, which is why Leeds threw a Hail Mary to him with four matches left but perhaps this dressing room is simply beyond him, lacking the fibre and the attributes needed to get it together in a relegation stampede. When all is said and done, nobody will be writing home about Allardyce’s approach to reorganising them.

Leeds, having scored through Rodrigo after 17 minutes, became more and more passive, fell apart at the back, and were inexplicably reliant on Rodrigo during a closing period in which injury badly compromised his movement. It was soft and depressed, a discernible game plan hard to identify at 2-1 down, and the experience raised a couple of possibilities: that Allardyce could not be expected to intervene in so short a time, that Premier League football has moved on from him, or both. So short a tenure leaves little scope to judge. But, if nothing else, the expectation was that Leeds, on his watch, would fight to the death.

Forget Allardyce, though. This is neither his doing nor his problem, and he will hardly be obliged to spend the summer self-flagellating. The dire position the club find themselves in is a product of mistake upon mistake and hubris in refusing to see errors or react to them effectively. There was a moment in the first half at West Ham when Rodrigo was put through by Kurt Zouma but ran the ball too wide to shoot. Willy Gnonto arrived onto Rodrigo’s pass but sliced his shot sideways to Jack Harrison. Harrison had the goal to aim at but dragged a shot into the advertising boards. That was the season in one attack, Leeds’ sad decay in one vignette, Sideshow Bob surrounded by rakes. And yet, weirdly, their struggle goes to the final day.

In circumstances like these, there is no option for a club but to surreptitiously plan for relegation, however much they would prefer to avoid the conversation. It is tempting to stick heads in the sand, to think that openly contemplating relegation is the same as inviting it, but there is no overstating the amount of work awaiting Leeds if they go down. There is more than enough ahead of them if they don’t.

With one game left, they are without a long-term head coach, a director of football, or a guaranteed ownership path. They have certain players who will leave however the season finishes, players who will have to go if Leeds do bomb into the Championship and the gruelling reality of a transfer window which opens within days of their last fixture.

Skip back to last summer and the signing of Brenden Aaronson to see how rapidly football moves from one campaign to the next. Leeds were barely an hour on from staving off relegation at Brentford when news of Aaronson’s imminent arrival from RB Salzburg broke. Celebrations, stewing in misery; there is little time for any of it.

Over the past couple of weeks, talks between majority shareholder Andrea Radrizzani and minority group 49ers Enterprises have intensified about how the boardroom will look if relegation bites. A deal for Radrizzani to sell to 49ers Enterprises is already in place should Leeds stay up but the Americans are keen on buying control regardless, and are actively discussing an arrangement which allows them to move to a majority position in the EFL. Radrizzani, for his part, appears to be in the mix of offers to buy Sampdoria in Italy. It is odd, to say the least, that a contingency for relegation was not negotiated further in advance but increasingly, it has been impossible for anyone to pretend that Premier League status was a given next season.

To that end, thoughts at boardroom level have been turned to the most suitable options for the position of head coach and the best way of replacing Victor Orta, Leeds’ former director of football, who left Elland Road a fortnight ago. It was those discussions which speculatively raised the idea of the club re-appointing Marcelo Bielsa for the Championship, although Bielsa pulled the rug from under that concept by agreeing to become Uruguay’s new head coach.

But this is where Leeds are: stuck in the twilight zone and very aware of the fact that the Premier League and the Championship are worlds apart; that preparing for one is not remotely like planning for the other.

All they can do in the days ahead, then, is hope for the best and be ready for the worst. The club are comprehensively in the routine of winging it anyway. There is no such thing as a lucky banknote in the Premier League and none of what is staring Leeds in the face is born of luck.

What is at the root of the crisis, Allardyce was asked afterwards. Why has it gone awry and so severely? “I’ll tell you when it’s over,” he said, refusing to open up but implying that there was much he could get into. As he shaped to leave his press conference, he sat back and crossed fingers on both hands. Because with the wolf at the door and face masks discarded in defeat, what else was there?