Sam Allardyce on look-out for what made Leeds United so special under Marcelo Bielsa - Yorkshire Post 13/5/23

MISSING: One vibrant Leeds United team. If you have any information as to its whereabouts, please contact Sam Allardyce, care of Elland Road.

Stuart Rayner

The caretaker manager has painful memories of what Marcelo Bielsa's Whites were capable of when they breezed into the top half of the Premier League with a refreshing brand of football in 2020-21. A 5-0 Christmas win at West Bromwich Albion was a particular highlight.

That Leeds team was such a joy that a club built on a "No one likes us, we don't care" mentality became most people's second favourites.

Allardyce hopes instilling some confidence can bring that back.

Keeping that club, albeit a shadow of that team, in the Premier League will earn the former England manager a hefty bonus this month but more than that, he thinks it will do top-flight football a huge favour.

For that to happen, Leeds needs to start picking up points in his last three games as caretaker, starting with something against Newcastle United at Elland Road on Saturday.

Newcastle was one of the clubs where Allardyce's reputation for pragmatic over poetic football cost him, sacked by Mike Ashley to make way for the romantic choice of Kevin Keegan in January 2008 but he has always maintained – rightly – there is more to him than the simplistic stereotypes he gets tagged with.

"I might be a saviour but I am a creator," he points out with his usual self-confidence when asked about keeping Bolton Wanderers above water, not getting them into Europe.

His four-game Elland Road stint – one match down, one defeat, at Manchester City – does not leave time for creating, this is simply about saving a football club in distress.

"If I can keep Leeds up I'm doing a great job for the Premier League to have Leeds in it," he argues.

"I managed against all the big players here in the early 2000s and it's been out an awful long time since then and been through an awful lot of pain to get back which would be wasted if we don't survive this year.

"I'm trying to see the Leeds of old with the energy and ability they've got, coupled with a bit more defensive resilience – that's probably what I'm looking for on Saturday because I don't know where that's gone.

"It's certainly not quite as buoyant as entertaining as it was, although in saying that his second year (under Bielsa in the Premier League) was a bit of a disaster, wasn't it?

"But the first year, I was at West Brom. They came down to the Hawthorns in about the second or third game (after Allardyce took over) and just blew us away so I know what some of the players are capable of. I know they're not all here any more but I want a bit more of that.

"Being able to outrun the opposition was one of Leeds's biggest strengths then."

He might think he does not know where it has gone, but he flags up the answer himself. It is all in the mind.

"When you’re hammered as much as they’ve been hammered (breaking Bielsa's record for most Premier League goals conceded in a month when they shipped 23 in April), the lead boots come on," he explains.

"We have to lift the lead boots off and put the lightweight boots back on and get running around as much as we possibly can. Without the stamina, the physical effort, the runs, the high-speed runs, without intelligence, you’ll get nowhere because the only reason you stop playing football is you can’t run any more. So when you can’t run, you can’t play professional football.

"We need the highest level of stamina, speed and high-intensity running – with intelligence, and in the right areas – and then the right amount of skill, delivery and understanding to come together to create opportunities against Newcastle.”

He will get it, he believes, more through the carrot than the stick.

"I think the confidence is getting better if training and the mood of the players is anything to go by,” he says. "We try to get it more enjoyable but serious at the right times.

"You want a reaction like Roy (Hodgson) had at (Crystal) Palace, I want one of them on Saturday, a performance that gives us a chance to win the game while we keep working on getting better.

"I can only hope what we do and what the players do is enough to keep Leeds in the league.

"I've given them a day off instead of coming in every day like they did before. There's nothing better than brain space. The brain is the biggest maker of a Premier League footballer and always will be.

"If your brain's not functioning properly it won't tell you how to use your skills correctly and that's why you play in the Premier League."

And manage in it.

Allardyce is nobody’s fool but recovering what slipped away from Bielsa will be difficult – doubly so in such a short time.