Sam Allardyce has laid out his blueprint – will it be enough to save Leeds United? - The Athletic 7/5/23

By Phil Hay

The Etihad was emptying because the Etihad assumed it was done. Early exits from a stadium are usually reserved for moments when defeat is nigh, but in this instance, Manchester City had camped so heavily in Leeds United’s territory that a five-a-side pitch would have sufficed. Ludicrous stats, game over. Or so it seemed.

But as Pep Guardiola fumed at Erling Haaland for handing over a penalty kick which Ilkay Gundogan missed, Leeds tipped up at the other end of the pitch and scored, Manuel Akanji nodding a header into traffic and Rodrigo slotting the ricochet past Ederson. Never leave before the whistle, they say, and on this afternoon, take that advice. For 85 minutes, it’s been an open training session. Now we’ve got a contest and City are trying to hide the ball by the corner flags.

To no avail, as it turned out for Leeds, but there was still a sense that the Sam Allardyce blueprint had shown itself, the means by which he will get Leeds out of a hole if indeed he can. By the end of their 2-1 defeat, City’s completed passes were just shy of 800. Leeds had only fractionally cleared 100. There was next to no possession, so few chances and quickly it became the Etihad as the Etihad is advertised: a ground where clubs are liable to get battered. “They’re so good, aren’t they,” Allardyce said afterwards and no one of any persuasion can sit and observe City with the mind crystallising like that.

It would have been 3-0 and no tension at all had Gundogan buried his penalty instead of hitting a post, but maybe that was the point. Maybe this is how it will happen. Maybe this is how it has to be, with risks limited, shortcomings mitigated or controlled as much as possible, belief in the idea that keeping a game alive stops it dying. And in playing that way, Rodrigo might be the player Allardyce badly needs, a forward who buries one shot from every two on target and, with 12 league goals, has been almost twice as clinical as expected goals (xG) metrics say he should be. The reality with Allardyce, a coach who, despite his reputation, immersed himself in data before it was fashionable, is that the margins are fine and will be fine all the way to the end.

Defensively, he has spent a lifetime unashamedly honing the craft. Allardyce can be heard talking about ‘brainwashing’ when he discusses perceptions of how football should be played and there is a streak in him that refuses to be made to feel inferior by hipster trends. When he rails against the shift in fashion, it is not really about Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp or Mikel Arteta, the coaches he references after his appointment this week. It is more about resenting the view that old-school is prehistoric and football is better for improved aesthetics.

But even a coach like Allardyce requires a supply of goals and, looking back, there is a common trend at the clubs that he took on mid-crisis and sorted out. Sunderland had Jermain Defoe, who scored 15 goals in the season Allardyce managed him and five in the final two months. Crystal Palace had Christian Benteke, who also scored 15 in total and six in the last two months. Everton had Wayne Rooney and Allardyce was scarcely through the door before Rooney was on a run of six strikes in five games. Those assets were critical in turning his tactics into tangible results.

Then came West Bromwich Albion, where the squad had nothing of the sort. Matheus Pereira, from midfield, was the only player to hit double figures, but by the time his finishes started to flow, West Brom were 10 points adrift of safety and all but relegated. Leeds, as Allardyce could see, were doomed if they staggered through the closing weeks of this season with more leaks at the back than the Titanic. But a defensive upturn was only going to pay off if someone reprised the Defoe role up front; reprised the knack of one chance, one finish or something close.

It was probably not a coincidence, then, that in his introductory press conference on Wednesday, Allardyce specifically referenced Patrick Bamford and the influence the England international would have to exert. Bamford looks like the obvious No 9 at Leeds and he duly started up front at City, although the change of notes was the change Allardyce had hinted at most heavily beforehand: Joel Robles preferred in goal to Illan Meslier, a veteran pushed into the fray and a relative youngster taken out of the firing line. Twenty-four hours before the game at City, Allardyce admitted he was yet to decide which way he would go with his choice of No 1 and that is not the sort of thing a manager says if they are stoically committed to the incumbent choice. How did Meslier react to being dropped? “He wasn’t very happy,” Allardyce said. “But I didn’t expect him to be very happy.”

But this is the sharp end where no room exists for sentiment or the protection of anyone’s ego. So after 80 minutes of Bamford trying to make non-existent possession stick up front, he went off and Rodrigo made his presence felt, jumping on an errant header as if he knew it was coming and beating Ederson with a low shot.

A dormant Etihad twitched badly, wondering what City were playing at. Gundogan had scored twice in the first half, Riyad Mahrez cutting inside Junior Firpo and setting him up on both occasions. Erling Haaland missed everything that came to him, hitting a post at one stage, then, when Pascal Struijk tripped Phil Foden inside the box in the 84th minute, Haaland passed the penalty onto Gundogan. If the point of the generosity was to avoid the Norwegian missing that, too, the trick failed. Guardiola was incensed and made to stew.

Allardyce had played a few mind games with Guardiola in the build-up, playful jousting more than anything, but there was none of that in the aftermath. City are borderline untouchable, Allardyce said. If truth be told, the four-game survival job given to the ex-England manager was more like a three-game survival job because taking a result from the Etihad was wholly unlikely.

“I can say that now,” Allardyce laughed when asked if he had it in his mind that City would be a write-off. There were no points to be had in Manchester, but the twinkle in his eye said the plan he set in motion there might just work elsewhere.