Can you give us an update on Rodrigo and Bamford?
Rodrigo trained today [Friday]. Patrick, we're going to give him as long as we can, certainly until tomorrow, and see where we're at before we make our final selection for Sunday. Obviously in the striking area, we are not overwhelmed with strikers perhaps. It will be what will be when we find out tomorrow morning, and then pick the final eleven to start the game on Sunday.
That sounds like you might be prepared to gamble on fitness?
I will gamble on anyone's fitness if they want to play. If I think they're going to make a contribution to try and help us win the game. It's the last game, they can have plenty of time to recover. There is obviously medical issues where it depends if you risk them, the risk is too great. Then a lot of it is up to the player themselves.
What’s the mood of the players because they’ve been training at the stadium?
Love the mood. Love the application. Here’s where we're going to live or die on Sunday in terms of the results and all we can try to do is give them as much opportunity to get the result they need. That comes with the the fact that we’ve trained here for three days building up to the game and the familiarity is all about this arena, this stadium on Sunday, with obviously the fantastic atmosphere that will go with it, as was when we played Newcastle. Hopefully we go one step farther and win the game instead of drawing it.
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You’ve also brought in Gary McAllister and Eddie Gray….
And Gordon Strachan this morning. He’s been here today.
What’s the thinking behind that?
It’s about how important Leeds is. What it means to them, a bit more of the history of the football club and the fact that they have had very successful times here. On the mentality side it’s about improving our mentality to deliver, somebody speaking with a different voice about this football club and what they did at this football club and how much they love it, I think is really important.
Not only do you have to win on Sunday, you have to think about Everton and Leicester, how do you cope and manage that situation?
The fans will tell us, won’t they? They won’t need me to tell them, they’ll tell by the mood of the crowd. It happens everywhere, or every one I’ve been involved with. Of course for my escape, which last game of the season only has happened once, the second season at Bolton. Not only were we winning, we knew that West Ham weren’t at Birmingham because the fans told us. The only focus for the players is to win the game and they can’t do any more than that.
Would you want that information because crowds get it wrong sometimes?
Not for me personally, because I'll be adjusting to what's happening on the field. Somebody else will have that distraction and I'll tell them on the day whether I want to be hear it or I don't. I don't want to hear that somebody's done something there and I change something here on the basis of that and it makes the team worse. On the view of the game and what's happening in the game and what we're doing, I want to decide on my substitutions is on what we're doing and not what others are doing elsewhere.
What have you seen since last weekend’s defeat to suggest you can get a win?
Well play like we played against Newcastle because we played a good performance. Our best performance by far since I've been able to first half against West Ham. Outstanding in terms of the way we played and the possession we had. Unfortunately our final third play was not up to scratch to score more goals than one and we shouldn't have done. Tomorrow is around the fact that there's tactics and tactics have to be put into place. Tottenham’s outstanding strength is their front lads. We have to as a team, when Tottenham is in possession of the ball, make sure that is not successful.
After that, what are the weaknesses of Tottenham? We saw a lot of weaknesses against Brentford last week and we've got to try and exploit. We're going to do that the best we possibly can and we've got to play the best game we possibly can. They have to play the game for the entire period of the game. We can't just what we did against West Ham which is got lost in the second half and didn't recover. Yes, we could get lost for five or 10 minutes and hold on then come back into the game and we never really did that.
How did you the younger players respond to the legends coming back this week?
Once they found out what they've done and who they are, a great deal. I mean all they have to do is listen to them. Eddie’s been around a long time anyway so I see him every other day since I’ve been here. His love for Leeds United, it’s different eras and what a great time they’ve had at Leeds United, what it means to them.
How much have you had your eyes opened here as to what’s needed?
That’s confidential. That will be aired in the aftermath of this season, wherever we may finish and we'll see where we go from there.
You've just spoken about having highs and the rollercoaster of emotions in the three games that you've been managing here for and it's inevitable that on the final day of the season, that is going to happen again. With that in mind, how important is it for you to have Leeds on the pitch with calm heads?
Controlled aggression and composure particularly in possession is a necessity because the more the more possession you have, the better quality we can deliver and the more we can get at Tottenham’s defensive unit which I think is a weakness based on what we’ve seen, particularly against Brentford. How do we do that? Well, we can’t do that without ignoring what Tottenham’s strengths are. The balance of two means that we try and score first again.
We've done that in the last two games and then failed miserably after that. When you score first, generally 80% of the time on the stats, you wouldn’t lose the game. But, there's an awful lot of time to play after it, to do the right job and it's the only time they've got left to do the right job. Our ball will be in play for 52 minutes, maybe 55, it’s about 55 minutes of pure concentration, not 90, because the ball is out of play all the other time. Then it’s just about getting in the right position and doing the right thing. I want just to see they're best. The best will get the fans behind them and the fans behind them will help them score or do what they need to do to get a result.
Are you able to appreciate the drama in football terms?
No, I hate it where I am now. When I came here I said to the players I want to be in a position that if we win, we stay in the league no matter what anybody else does and that’s not happened.
So I've been disappointed from that point of view because we have the opportunity to do that. But we've failed to take it, so we go into Sunday and I hope that we can do two things. If we are to win we need a clean sheet in my opinion because we are not a prolific goalscoring team and then try and win by as many goals as we can.
You’ve talked about those that have experienced success and the benefits of their experience. If things all fall into place on Sunday, and you do manage to survive and the top flight, it will be perhaps the greatest of all great escapes. So even though you've been here for only a few games, have you considered the chapter that you might write in this club's history?
There's been some greatest or greatest escapes. I can always remember but Bryan Robson, a big mate of mine, doing it at West Brom, who not only won but needed all the others not to. We've got that similar situation with Leicester and Everton. All we can do is win the football match and, is pray the right word? I don't know. Let's say the gods look after us and all your results go the right way for us but winning is the ultimate, winning is the only thing we control and try and control and finish the season with a victory for the fans and for themselves. Hopefully after all that there's a celebration.
Regardless of the outcome, would you like this job?
That's to be decided after the end. It's always been a case of we will discuss whatever we need to discuss on the end of the season, based on where we are, based on what I think the club needs to go forward, based on what the club things. If that's aligned with each other then we'll wait and see but that discussion has happened in a morning or one day, it happens over a period of time. I just hope we’re talking on a very positive nature on Monday morning and I have a hangover.
When you’ve got Rodrigo instead of Bamford up front, do you have to change the way you construct attacks?
We’ve actually changed the way we constructed our attacks in every single game actually. So obviously, Sunday’s tactics will be slightly different to what West Ham was and what Newcastle and Man City was. I have to say that the adaptive nature of the player has been pretty good because we've done a lot of practice with it, We haven't wasted our time, to control the controlables and about how we play against the opposition, what the opposition do, their strengths and weaknesses and how we challenge that and we challenge that by tactically making differences within the team.
You said a lot depends with injured players on the player himself. Are you seeing players stick their hand in the air and do absolutely everything they can to play?
Only if it's the right thing for them to take the challenge up and the medical staff are saying, if the medical staff told me too risky I wouldn't put a player's career, future at risk and ask them to do something that may injure them seriously. The risk factor will be taking into consideration and that decision taken. It would need to be 100% supported by the player.
You were disparaging about the impact of subs at West Ham, have you see a reaction from them in training this week?
I have a lot to do on a match day and a lot to decide and a lot to look after. And one of the most difficult things is substitutions times five. It’s hard enough before and now it’s even harder for us because all of a sudden, you make five subs and the coach is crap because his subs were crap and they didn’t influence the game. If you didn’t make five subs, the coach is crap because he didn’t make any subs.
So all that criticism you have to face, but in all fairness, the opportunity to put an impact sub on is a massive decision and when you see it fail it's very disappointing that that player has had an opportunity to affect the game and not lived up to the standard that you expected, and probably their standard. It's not an easy job, getting on the field and making an impact. It’s one of the difficult jobs for them to do but something that we accept more and more now by the fact that we have five substitutes to deal with now.
Last season the club got out of the similar situation that we've got quite a difficult. I'm sure you've heard about it...
Different squad.
Have you focused in any way on that? And the psychology behind that that achievement last year?
Somewhat yes, but I mean it's a different squad and different squad of players in there. A lot of the players did experience that last year. So I would expect the players that have experienced that to come up with the goods on Sunday.
Understandably, you seem very disappointed, I wondered what your mechanisms of support are….
I was disappointed in the second half performance. Apart from the goal we conceded which could have been easily avoidable and maybe that was then the turning point of the game because we never came out for the second half. So I can only point in the right direction to the players to continue the way they played in the second half but they didn't. That was a huge disappointment for me not to take the quality of our football to West Ham. David Moyes said to me, ‘how you weren’t 3-0 up by the first 25 minutes is why we got back in the game’.
When the opposition manager is telling you, who I’ve known for God knows how many years, you know you're on the right track. The only thing we didn't do was capitalise on our good play and then at the end of the day like everything else in this league, you get punished for not taking advantage when you're in control. So a bit like here, 2-0 up and I’m convinced we wouldn’t have lost. 2-0 up against West Ham and I’m convinced we wouldn’t have lost but we didn't do it. So that's what we've got to achieve on Sunday.
I just wondered who were the people who you rely on to lift your mood after a game like that?
I lift my mood because it's my responsibility to lift my mood. My mood is always very, very good when I arrive at the football ground. My job is to lift everybody and that's why that's why I call myself a manager rather than coach because he it’s a big responsibility to understand people, to lead people and to understand how they work and lift them. It's just as important as tactics. So we've enjoyed our week as best we possibly can and the focus has always been on how do we beat the opposition in a way that we enjoy what we've done this week, and hopefully they can translate that into the game on Sunday.
Luke Ayling said on Sunday that he didn't think the team had it in them to go again in the second half almost suggesting that the energy wasn't there. So I wonder what you make of the fitness and the conditioning?
Well, it was there against Newcastle and that's what surprised me. We were better than Newcastle with our energy and we were pretty good against Manchester City. So it was a huge disappointment because of what he said.
There's mental fitness. Mental fitness is much better than physical fitness because you’ll give more when you're mentally strong. If you drive yourself on mentally, then you will overcome that lack of physical fitness that you have.
Like I told you last week, how fast would you run if I pointed a gun at you? You’ll run the fastest you've ever run. You’ll become an Olympic sprinter very quickly.
Tottenham have changed manager twice and they went down an inexperienced route. Was it frustrating when you were out of the game that no one came for you?
A few came but it wasn't good enough for me at that particular time. Most of them were abroad and at my later stage in life and with a wife that’s followed me all over the place, she just said ‘no way’. That was the end of it. It would have had to been one that came up that interested me. It's just a shame and I'm not criticising anybody, it’s just a shame it wasn’t sooner but it is what it is. I’m a glutton for punishment. People have said ‘what the hell do you think you're doing, not only four games but the four games you're facing’. I’ve give it my best shot. I've enjoyed it the best you can.
I don’t enjoy it when we lose and I don’t enjoy travelling back when we’ve lost and I don’t enjoy the day after but after that we analyse it, get over and start again. Dealing with young players again, obviously keeps you young and I love thinking about what we're going to do and what we're not going to do. Instead of wondering whether I'm going to have a cup of tea and a poached egg on toast and walk around the reservoir and watch whatever is on Netflix and walk around the reservoir again, is pretty goddamn boring.
You've answered part of a second question which was how to be enjoyed being back in the game and the second part of that is could you go into the 23 months outside of the game?
I can’t answer that at this moment in time it's like talking about what's going to happen in preseason here and what's going on, but now it's all there because all the lads have done it but we can’t talk about until after Sunday.
