Sam Allardyce reveals he begged Leeds for job 12 games before being hired… only to snub them when asked to stay on
SAM ALLARDYCE has admitted he asked for the Leeds job 12 games before they reached out to him.
Leeds’ relegation battle went down to the last day when a 4-1 defeat to Tottenham saw them back down to the Championship – after three consecutive seasons in the Premier League.
Allardyce has vast experience of keeping teams up and reckoned he had a good chance with Leeds.
He revealed on a William Hill podcast that he called Leeds CEO Angus Kinnear saying: “Take me, I’ll save you.”
Allardyce made this call 12 games prior to his appointment, but Leeds returned the call after sacking Javi Gracia with four games to go.
Kinnear said: “Can you come; will you do it, please?”
Upon reflection he said: “We were really close in the four games because we should have won the Newcastle match.
“It was always going to come back and bite us because we didn’t defend very well.
“We didn’t keep a clean sheet since last February – and we couldn’t score goals or create chances.”
The former England boss, whose many clubs included Bolton, West Ham and Newcastle, said he had “nothing to lose” with the Leeds job.
Explaining his reasons for declining the task of bringing them back up from the Championship next season he said: “I got to choose who I wanted to be.
“I chose whether I was going to get Leeds back up again, and under the circumstances of what I saw in a short space of time, I thought it was going to be hugely difficult because the reasons behind it are a lot deeper.
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“The two factors in not staying were: do I think there are enough goals up front for Leeds? If they kept all the players, probably. Defensively, they are going to have to lose some players for financial reasons.”
On the podcast Allardyce touched on his viral first press conference as Leeds manager – where he seemed to compare himself to Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp.
Allardyce gave an interesting perspective on his comments, saying: “Alex Ferguson always said that when you are in trouble, divert the attention on to you. When I turned up, the players looked so dejected – there was barely a smile on their faces.
“We had to pick the players up, so I thought that taking the pressure off by creating a headline was a good way to do that. It made the press really easy.”