Not a Leeds fan … and to be honest I have nothing against Sam Allardyce really… even though I support the last club he was at and that club was relegated. Not a fan of his type of football, but I’m of the opinion that you play the way your players allow you. Now, when Allardyce arrives at West Brom he had all the types of players his style should work with, but it didn’t help much. Not even sure if he’ll have that type of advantage at Leeds.
But the general point is, isn’t it about time football clubs stopped looking for this easy fix? Their problems are on the pitch, they should be sorted out there and the players should be sorted out or left out if they are not performing as instructed and clearly these are not. The clubs always rely on bringing someone new in as a sort of kick up the backside for the players. To be fair sometimes it works or rather it works in the short term… Just long enough for the same players to fall out with another manager or fall into their olds ways of not giving a fuck.
Because that’s the problem, some of the players. Football is an easy game, no manager has a magic wand and almost all of them at this level are good enough to manager a mid-table team is allowed. It would be nice for the clubs to sit down with the coaching staff to look at the games and find out which players are not following the instructions for whatever reason. Then those players can be dropped or even removed from the club to allow those that want to play to play.
Of course, this would never happen because of the value of these players. Can you imagine telling the world a £30m player is a cunt, his price would drop to zero in an hour. So the players get their way, the clubs still take a financial hit but the cost of paying of a manager is less than the cost of dumping a player or three. But in the end those player will cost the club, maybe not this season but the next.
The state of the game is so that these types of people are playing for the money. When they have enough, some will have other interests and that takes away their interest in giving 100%. In fact for some they don’t even realise it, they are so good that in some league they can coast and still be outstanding enough for a premiership club to take the risk on them. But the premiership is not a place you can coast, it needs 100% every game and if enough of your players are not prepared to do that you are in trouble.
Of course this problem is made worse by the cost of by ready-made premiership players, they are so expensive because they come without this risk. That’s why I’ve always thought it better to buy older players dropping from the higher clubs than to risk money on unknowns.
Good luck Sam, but for Leeds the problems will remain I’m sure.
