Alex Keble questions whether Premier League survival is worth the huge shift in direction Leeds United have made by turning to Sam Allardyce to keep them up.
- Published before Man City 2-1 Leeds
The media might have lapped up Sam Allardyce’s bolshie machismo in his first press conference as Leeds United interim manager but for supporters worrying his arrival signals the final – and total – erasure of the principles Marcelo Bielsa gave to the club there is nothing funny about Big Sam stealing the headlines.
Allardyce is a unique character, much-loved by neutrals for his pantomime act of defiance against the Premier League’s fashions and his retrograde style of direct, defence-first football that can itself feel like theatre.
But he is no joke. Allardyce is a talented manager with an excellent CV, from the glory years at Bolton Wanderers to his role as survival specialist over the last decade, during which time his stubborn refusal to modernise tactically stabilised Sunderland, Blackburn, West Ham, Crystal Palace and Everton.
Nevertheless there has perhaps never been a worse fit for club and manager, or at least there has never been such an emphatic departure from a team’s supposed principles in the desperate hope of avoiding relegation.
With the appointment of Allardyce, Leeds have completely junked the Bielsa years; have crudely stamped on the legacy of a man who single-handedly took Leeds from interminable Championship stasis to one of the most interesting teams in the Premier League.
At most clubs, a brief dip into the world of 'Big Sam' wouldn’t be such a big deal, but at Leeds it feels symbolic of something important being lost. It is an ending more than it is a beginning, and no matter what Allardyce does over the next four games, Leeds fans will fear what this interlude means for the long-term status of their club.
They will also fear how ludicrously late in the season their club have pressed the 'Big Sam' panic button, with Leeds following the interim trend at death’s door. Allardyce might have a history of this sort of thing but his reputation as a fire-fighter, as an escapologist, is more myth than reality: the latest he has ever been parachuted into a Premier League season is December 17.
He surely does not have enough time, then, to completely rewrite the club’s DNA. He will take just three training sessions before Saturday’s trip to Manchester City after which he faces Newcastle United (h), West Ham (a), and Tottenham Hotspur (h), probably needing to win two of them.
Then again, it’s hard not to be drawn in by his bullish, brutish charm. “It’s a nice easy one on Saturday,” he said of the game at Etihad Stadium. “But it has been done. Brentford did it. Brentford won there. Shocks do happen.”
And if there is one narrative twist left in this brilliant and bonkers Premier League season, let’s hope it’s Big Sam swooping in out of nowhere to tear up the script at both ends of the table, drawing Arsenal back into the title race and all-but ending Leeds’ relegation struggles with one absurd result.
For that to happen, or for Leeds to get a couple of wins at Elland Road, Allardyce must work very quickly.
He knows where to start. In the same press conference, he suggested Leeds are good enough going forward but need tightening up at the back, saying “there’s a massive problem out of possession” when asked how he'll fix things in such a short space of time. He might be right, but hidden in that phrase is an outright rejection of the ideas that have built the modern Leeds.
Allardyce will spend all his time working on getting Leeds to stop pressing; to renounce Bielsa and sit back in neat rows, compressing space between the lines and learning how to apply pressure to the ball in small, conservative bursts.
Only when the opposition lose possession will his players have permission to stretch their legs and burst forward on the counter and, in theory, Leeds do possess the right squad profile for counter-attacking football.
But do they have the time – or the will – to make it happen? Unlearning instincts takes time, effort, and desire to do so, and the latter in particular is not guaranteed from the more recent signings who expected to be allowed to flourish playing a certain way.
It didn’t work out in his last job at West Brom, who were relegated with 19 points from the 25 Premier League matches in which Allardyce was in charge, and while there were mitigating Covid-19 factors (Allardyce admitted this week he should never have taken that job) it is not a given that Big Sam still knows the Premier League like he claims to.
“I may be 68 and look old but there’s nobody ahead of me in football terms. Not Pep, not Klopp, not Arteta. It’s all there with me. 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.”
Those were the opening remarks that will stay with Allardyce now; that will be used to frame these four matches regardless of the outcome. It was certainly a bold way to start and attention-seeking too - a red flag for supporters that alludes to how little Allardyce is risking by taking the job.
But it would be wrong to see those quotes as purely a publicity stunt. Make no mistake, Allardyce believes what he said. And confidence can go a long way in a relegation battle.
It should be mentioned that Javi Gracia, who started the job of dragging Leeds towards tactical normality, said in his departing words that “today, with four games left in the league, the team is out of the relegation zone and with a good chance of achieving the objective. I am confident that the team will achieve its objective.”
He has a point. Maybe, with Nottingham Forest and Everton looking incapable of collecting points, Leeds can survive without actually doing very much. Maybe all they need is a fresh pair of eyes, merciless training sessions and a cocky leader. Allardyce will at least provide all that.
