Leeds United promotion ‘hugely difficult’, 49ers takeover took ‘too long’ – Sam Allardyce
Sam Allardyce says he left Leeds United rather than look to get them promoted because what he saw at the club made him feel that would be “hugely difficult”.
The one-game England boss was in charge for the final four matches of last season, as then-owner Andrea Radrizzani’s fourth first-team boss of the campaign, but was unable to prevent the Whites being relegated from the Premier League.
He left by “mutual agreement” on 2 June, four days after the final day defeat to Tottenham, and says that while Daniel Farke might do a “brilliant job” this season he believes the 49ers takeover, finally made official on 17 July, took “too long” and amid player exits he believes bouncing back straight away will be a tough ask.
Speaking to Simon Jordan on his Up Front podcast (27 July, 49m 45s) he was asked why he didn’t want to get the club back to the Premier League and said: “Yeah but I choose whether I’m going to get Leeds back up again and under the circumstances that I saw in my short period of time I thought it was going to be hugely difficult.
“The two factors in not staying is, do I think there’s enough goals up front for Leeds if they kept all their players? Probably yes.
“Defensively, you’re definitely going to have to lose some players for financial reasons. I actually advocated for Karl Robinson and Robbie Keane to stay.
“And of course I wasn’t sure about the support I was going to get at the top because the change of ownership was going to happen. When was it going to happen? How long was it going to take? In my opinion it’s taken too long.”
Ominous
Allardyce may just be trying to wash his hands of responsibility for relegation, but the fact is that he was in the building and will have seen the disarray from the previous campaign first hand.
Some of the new resilience his late arrival appeared to have injected ultimately amounted to zero wins from four and a limp final-day drop into the second tier.
The new regime should, in theory, be ready to do away with the chaos that characterised the previous campaign but the fact that Championship season is just over a week away and the squad is still anything but set is undeniable.
Given a straight choice between the former West Brom boss and Farke most supporters would likely choose the German anyway, but he always had his work cut out for him when his own arrival was delayed in the hope the ownership situation would be cleared first, and was then only announced on 4 July the day before preseason training to under way.
Ethan Ampadu is, so far, his only signing, and while Karl Darlow shouldn’t be far off as his second it isn’t a bumper haul with a game on 6 August.
Max Wober’s “done deal” exit to Borussia Monchengladbach has weakened his squad further, and there is speculation around numerous others.
So while Allardyce may have just decided that was all more upheaval than he was willing to take on at this stage of his career there is no overlooking that fact his successor has a challenge on his hands.
In other Leeds United news, a key Whites target has so far refused to commit to his current club amid transfer interest from Elland Road.