George Overhill

Sat 6 May 2023 9:10, UK

Leeds United have now moved onto their fourth manager of the season with Sam Allardyce and yet still appear to be employing Chris Armas in a mystery role.

The former Manchester United coach has become arguably the strangest footnote in a Whites campaign that has lurched from one farcical situation to another, but the evidence is that he has been at the club for over three months now despite his actual role being a mystery for most of it.

American Armas was brought in on 25 January to support the first of those four, his former colleague and teammate Jesse Marsch, but was left in limbo when the former RB Leipzig boss was sacked two weeks later (6 February).

That the departed coach’s compatriot and “confidant” [The Athletic, 7 February] was kept on at that point despite the rest of Marsch’s team leaving was strange enough, but when the eventual replacement in Javi Gracia made clear publicly that he had nothing to do with Armas it was weirder still.

Gracia said, as per The Athletic on 9 March: “He’s not part of my staff. He’s not here. It’s something the club can maybe explain better.”

The Spaniard has now been sacked, and the man who brought Armas in, former director of football Victor Orta, has also departed, and yet still nobody has explained it better as there has been no official announcement on an exit for the 50-year-old or otherwise.

Perhaps Sam Allardyce has a use for him, maybe he has been moved into some sort of analytical role, or he may not even be at the club physically any longer.

But, despite Andrea Radrizzani proving in the past week that he is not scared to jettison people from Elland Road there have been no indications that Armas has gone anywhere.

It he is adding some value to proceedings then all the better, as nobody wants to see people lose their jobs for the sake of it, but Gracia’s snub obviously made his intended role untenable.

Arguably, his original purpose was wiped out the second Marsch was fired after losing to Nottingham Forest, with Armas, Max Wober and Weston McKennie joined together as significant signals of support for the first head coach of the season that were quickly undermined.

But while the two players have featured frequently since, to differing levels of success, the backroom man hasn’t been seen following the abandoned attempt to ride out the season with him and Paco Gallardo supporting Michael Skubala in interim charge.

While the former under-21s boss was officially promoted to the first-team staff when Gracia was appointed, and Gallardo took his place in charge of the Leeds United youngsters, there was no announcement on Armas in the 24 February update.

The Athletic’s Phil Hay reported via Twitter at the time that Armas was still with the club, and short of a secret departure he remains there.

The presence of a man who was brought in specifically to support one manager, formed part of the interim team alongside the second, was publicly rejected by the third, and still remains in limbo after the arrival of the fourth pretty much sums up how this season has gone at Elland Road.

That chaos has brought the club once again to the brink of relegation to the Championship, unless Allardyce can pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Perhaps the answers to the Armas mystery will become clear when this nightmare of a campaign ends and the future starts to be made clear, but given how things have gone so far for him at the club maybe they never will.

In other Leeds United news, there is conflict in the Whites dressing room with some upset with the senior pros.