Sam Allardyce takes what he wants from entertaining first Thorp Arch encounter - YEP 4/5/23

The Sam Allardyce Show rolled into Leeds United on Wednesday morning and played out in predictably entertaining fashion.

By Graham Smyth

The press room at Thorp Arch previously housed the sleeping pods Marcelo Bielsa had constructed to facilitate restful downtime during the double and triple-session days of pre-season.

On Wednesday afternoon no one was catching 40 winks as the Big Sam Show rolled into town. A Monday Zoom call led to a Tuesday morning spent signing contracts and then a first training session, before a press conference. It was all go for the 68-year-old tasked with saving a grand, old football club from the fate it fears most.

The adrenaline had been pumping, he said, after bringing to an end a two-year exile from management. That period offered up the possibility of working abroad, opportunities that weren't for Allardyce, and it's clear that he felt the phone should have rang more often than it did, with Premier League clubs at the other end.

Leeds, he said, have known where he was all season, making clear reference to the time when Jesse Marsch was sacked and Allardyce made noise about his belief that he could sort them out. He would have liked the call to come sooner, but it didn't and now, with Elland Road finally sending up the Sam signal, he's got four games to save them. A big challenge, requiring plenty of self confidence, something the club's fourth manager of the season is not found wanting.

It was in response to a question about his history with this job and how close he has come to it in the past that he made his keynote statement. It was such a tangent, in fact, that it could almost have been pre-planned.

"In the highlight of this year, they've always known where I am," he said of Leeds.

"But it's never materialised until now. Far too many people think that I am old and antiquated, which is far from the truth. I might be 68 and old but there's nobody ahead of me in football terms. Not Pep, not Klopp, not Arteta. They do what they do, I do what I do. In terms of knowledge and depth of knowledge, I'm up there with them. I'm not saying I'm better than them, but certainly as good as they are."

Headlines written, he could have got up and walked out. The man even made sure that no one had been napping when he said it: "I have just given you a big headline - I'm as good as Pep, I'm as good as Klopp. I can see it tomorrow. That will be wonderful." He didn’t have that long to wait, all of the major broadcasters running with his comments within minutes of them leaving his lips. Hook, line and sinker.

It's me, hi, I'm the story it's me. Write the theme tune, sing the theme tune, make it all about you and not this struggling team who could do with a break from the criticism, spotlight and headlines. There are players in the squad whose recent difficulties would make the idea of crawling into a sleeping pod and emerging on May 29 sound blissful.

Allardyce wasn't going to delve too deeply into the mess he has inherited, save to say what he was expected to say - the leaks have got to stop. It takes no analysis whatsoever to determine that Leeds will go down if they continue to ship goals at such an alarming rate. Allardyce could have done that in the 'two seconds' it took him to say yes to the job. He's got two days now to dig a lot deeper and decide exactly what needs to change in order to prevent an embarrassment at Manchester City.

"I don't really know [Leeds' strengths] until I get to the end of today and into tomorrow," he said.

"They seem to be able to handle the ball and attack, but in recent weeks, probably one of the worst defensive records in the Premier League over the last 10 games. My call to the players is to be more adaptable. I have to form a pattern of play for each game to help the players win and that can't be by playing the same way every game."

There will be a plan for Manchester City and there will, of course, be major assumptions on how that will look. Even if Allardyce is a man who used sports science and data to transform Bolton in his 1999 to 2007 spell, one who champions sports psychology and one who talked of the importance of Artificial Intelligence in Wednesday's press conference, his preparations and plan for the Etihad will have to be relatively rudimentary. There won't be a lot of possession, as he freely admits.

And come Friday when the respective managers do their press, Allardyce and his potential impact will be the Leeds-centric topic of conversation. Those quotes about being every bit as good as Guardiola. How he might, by some miracle, throw a spanner in the works for Pep's machines. He's inserting himself in the narrative at both ends of the table and becoming the story. That, you suspect, is exactly how he will want it.

At some stage, possibly even Saturday night, talk will start to turn again to the individuals the new boss has at his disposal and their suitability for this fight and his football. Right now, they're being shielded from the spotlight. It's all about Sam.