Sam Allardyce reduced to hoping for good luck on decisive final day of Premier League season - Yorkshire Post 28/5/23

Sam Allardyce might be the Premier League's most renowned firefighter, but even he is hoping for a bit of luck today.

By Stuart Rayner

Leeds United host Tottenham Hotspur knowing victory alone will not suffice to keep them in the top flight after three seasons back at this level.

Home wins for Leicester City or Everton will makes Leeds's result irrelevant. If the Foxes drop points, a Whites win will spare them, if they win and Everton draw it will have to be by three clear goals.

It leaves Allardyce, put in interim charge of Leeds with just four games remaining, needs help from a higher power.

"I’ve saved other football clubs in dire and desperate situations, but that’s always been with a lot more games and a lot more opportunities than this to put into place what you need to save them," points out the former England manager.

"There's tactics, there's players playing to their best and then there's good fortune, so our good fortune will happen on Sunday, hopefully.

"I think (two) West Ham goals (in last week's 3-1 defeat) were millimetres from being offside.

"That would have made a massive difference but they were millimetres the wrong way round.

"You want something like that to go in your favour, you want the referee to give you something you perhaps didn't deserve and you don’t want the referee to give something against you that shouldn’t have got.

"All those factors come into play – it (the ball) hits the post and goes in or it hits the post and comes out.

"They are the uncontrollables.

"A bounce can go the right or wrong way so you hope that the good fortune is in your favour.

"A tackle, like West Ham’s third goal, we intercepted the ball twice and what happened? It went straight to their players, twice.

"That’s got to go the other way so all those factors that we can’t control have to be in your favour."

Allardyce has had some close scrapes before but until his last job, at West Bromwich Albion, he had never been relegated.

He memorably danced on the pitch with Jay-Jay Okoacha after keeping Bolton Wanderers up in 2002-03, and his dad dancing was on show at Sunderland after saving them with time to spare in 2016.

He hopes he can have a Big Sam Samba at Elland Road.

"I fancy Rodrigo as the best dancer – a Big Sam Samba, that would be nice," he jokes. "Let's hope we're smiling on Sunday."