Allardyce starts on injuries....
Right my injuries are, before we even start let's get them out of the way. Liam Cooper. Stuart Dallas Tyler Adams, Luis Sinisterra. That’s not bad, just four.
You used the word hope off the back of the Manchester City defeat. What was it you saw about that performance specifically in the second half? How do you go about converting that into wins now?
I think I saw a fight, determination and then the ability to improve the performance overall compared to what they produced in the first 45 minutes. I think that having conceded, what is it, 20 goals in the last however many games, I thought keeping Man City down to two was not too bad. We all know they missed a chance or two but everybody does that. I think that we scored the goal, we looked better in the second draft. A bit of work attacking and defending, defending and attacking with the players this week hopefully improves their level of performance to get to a higher standard on Saturday. Notwithstanding that need to rest, rest and recovery in between, of course, pick a side and play against the Newcastle side that play a completely different way to Manchester City. So we have to work out how to defend against their strengths and try to exploit their weaknesses.
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You’ve had a full week with the players, you mentioned Liam Cooper wasn’t involved at Man City, is he close?
They think so, next week. I think that we've got to keep everybody fit if we possibly can. I think the squad in general is a bit light in terms of numbers. So we have to be very protective of not picking up too many injuries because it does deplete the squad. Of course, what's more important today than ever, is having five quality subs, the best quality subs you could possibly get because you need to use when you need to make the decision to use them, which has put a hell of a lot more pressure on coaches or managers to make the right decisions in terms of substitutes when you’ve got five. And of course that will that will bring its own criticism on whether you made the right choices are not. I thought we did okay with our choices last week because we seem to, as we made more substitutes, we didn’t waiver and improved somewhat with fresh legs and a bit more spirit, a bit more quality.
A lot of water under a bridge but just wondering is there any personal edge or motivation from you given that it's Newcastle on Saturday?
It’s a long time ago. 2007 is a long time ago. What was I disappointed? Yes. What did he do to my career? Massive knockback, but as always I recover and move on. So it was an opportunity that in the end I couldn't avoid a change of ownership that was unexpected. No criticism of Mike (Ashley). He wanted to do with it what he wanted to do with it at that particular time. For me, it was a blow to my career at that particular time because I wanted to take Newcastle as far as I possibly could like it's doing now, that was the ambition of me and Freddie Shepherd at the time, but it wasn’t to be.
There’s been observations from Premier League managers about what's been described as time-wasting tactics…
Who doesn’t do it? Who complained?
There’s been Jurgen Klopp and Erik ten Hag...
They time waste. They all time waste when they’re in the last five minutes and they’re winning 2-1. Don’t be daft. It’s rubbish that is.
It’s just an observation I wonder if you’ve picked up on and how do you keep that intensity?
We've all been talking about ball in play more than we've talked about time-wasting or whether ball in play can be improved, but the game is ferocious and quick enough as it is. Players’ fatigue and injuries and players’ resources are strained more than ever before. So to speed the game up even more and increase the level of time there on the pitch even more, you’re going to get more and more injuries and more and more crippling injuries and you've ever gotten because it's never been as quick as it now. With it being so quick, recovery time becomes of the essence and then because of so many games, there is no recovery time because there's no recovery time you get more and more injuries and then you ultimately end up getting more and more chronic injuries which may limit a player's career to a lot shorter than it should be. But we can’t do anything about that because the players ask for so much money we have to try and increase our profits and increase our turnover every year to fund the players that are so expensive to bring into Premier League football.
How do you deal with Newcastle United compared to Manchester City?
It’s a different way of playing. Managing how they play and the players obviously looking at how they're playing and trying to remember when they go on the field what the strengths of Newcastle are to nullify them and what their weaknesses are to try and obviously get a goal to score against them. So you play completely differently to Manchester City.
Given the circumstances of the two sides, how big is the challenge to be offensive at home but also have that defensive resilience?
They've got some talented players on the top three more to come on, Almiron and Saint-Maximin, as well as the three up front they started against Arsenal. Goalscorer, a big goalscorer in Wilson, which we have to manage. At the other end you can get in behind and you can get down the side of Newcastle if you can break through midfield. So it depends on our quality then when we get to the final third and what we decide to do with that final ball if we don't get the ball right, we won't create as many chances as we would like to put Newcastle under pressure. Hopefully we can have something to go forward with because I'd like to score the first goal as possible. That’s very important for us on Saturday. Getting the first goal would be a big lift. It would help us win the game, I’m saying we would win the game but going a goal down would be a very difficult job I think mentally for the players to come back from. If that's the case then they’ll have to try and do it. What they won’t have to do is go daft like they have done before, leave the back door open and concede two, three and four again.
The results weren’t great after the weekend. So how big a job was it for you on the mental side to go in there this week and lift them again ahead of this weekend?
We would still have to win some games. Whether they won or whether they lost, we would still have to win some games. We won’t stay up with 30 points. Nobody's ever going to do it. We've got nine points to go for. We know if we get nine points, which is massive ask, we’ll stay up. If we get six we might do. What are we going to be? I have to say at this time, I want to be still in it when we play Tottenham, that's what I want to be. I’d be very satisfied if when we play Tottenham we're still in it.
Just finally, Sam Greenwood. How impressed have you been with him, has he done enough for you to suggest that he might be able to be involved?
Everybody trained for us to do enough. We'll make a couple of changes based on what the Newcastle team is and how we want to play against Newcastle, so we'll make the changes, which we'll find out about when the team sheet goes in.
You touched on Newcastle. How far could you have taken them had you been longer in the job?
It’s speculation, it’s not worth talking about anymore. You had a big enough headline off me last week, you’re not going to get any more. I needed to divert, by the way all those who criticised me sounded a bit thick, all I was doing was diversifying off the players onto myself, which is a great tactic I picked up off Alex Ferguson. So there was no pressure on the players because I took it all, all the stick and all that, ‘listen to him’, but there we go. There's none of that this week it’s purely and simply focusing on Newcastle and trying to get the three points that we desperately need. I have said to the players, and I'll say now, when we come off the field on Saturday, we can't afford to lose. We must get something.
What will it be like stepping out at Elland Road for the first time as Leeds manager?
Loved playing here as the away team. Love the atmosphere. I came as a manager and the same. The historical nature of the game and yes, it might be an old stadium but it’s Elland Road and what it stands for. The old days when I was growing up watching that team, I was speaking to Eddie today at great length. He's got grandsons here in the academy. He’s looking really fit, I was wondering if he could put his boots on and play, he’s the fittest 75-year-old I've seen in a long time. He's still around the club, he still comes in he loves it that much. It’s a great football club.
A few of the U21s, like Archie Gray, have been close to it this season. Would it be unfair at this stage to put them in given the stakes?
It’s a big decision, I don’t mind making bid decisions but whether it’s the right decision, we have to calculate whether that’s right. Whether the young lad has got the ability and skill, it’s whether we think he could handle the occasion. This is a cauldron for us to go in and be able to perform at the highest level we can with the pressure that we put on ourselves by the position that we're in. So I suppose you could get a youngster that goes in and doesn't have that amount of stress because he just wants to go in and play football and can play with a freedom or he could freeze quite easily. But in saying that many of the players, young or old, could do that on Saturday. What I’m hoping for is good mental resilience that allows them to perform at their highest quality. The fear needs to drive them on, the fear of relegation, the fear of losing their Premier League status should make them hopefully fight and fight hard for their status, their position at Leeds United.
Given that you knew some of the players previously from managing against them, have any of them surprised you working with them? Have you surprised them?
I am very pleased with the attitude of the players. I think what did surprise me is the fact that we've had to lift up the energy levels to compete at the highest level. I think when you when you're hammered as much as they've been hammered, the lead boots come on and we have to lift the lead boots off and put the lightweight boots back on and get running around as much as we possibly can. Without the stamina, the physical effort, the runs the high-speed runs with intelligence you'll get nowhere in this game because the reason you stop playing football is because you can't run anymore and when you can’t run you can’t play professional football.
We need the highest level of stamina, speed and intense running, obviously with intelligence in the right area and then we need the right amount of skill and delivery of understanding to come together to create opportunities against Newcastle.
You don’t have a lot of time in this job. So how beneficial has been a full clear week for this game and what have you achieved?
I think it's been helpful. I suppose when I looked at it and thought, Man City, Newcastle, West Ham, Tottenham, that's not going to be easy. But at least it had one week free every week to try and help them get better and better with each game coming around. The biggest thing that can happen to us tomorrow is not lose because at least you get a point on the board. If we got three, I’m 40 or 50 per cent thinking we could stay safe now.
Patrick Bamford last week had a thankless task, it's always a tough job when you're in that kind of system. Rodrigo comes on and scores the goal. How would you approach that situation? Are those two vying for what we think is one spot?
There’s nothing wrong with the system it’s just to players that play in it. It's not the system that breaks down it's the players within the system and their inability or technical inability to make it work as an attacking force. It's what most clubs play these days.
Given you say it’s a game you can’t afford to lose…
Well it won't be over. That would mean that we go into two games and need two wins. Even then that might not be enough. To give ourselves the best chance to get a point on the board but more importantly three if we can.
With Newcastle’s attacking talent then does that mean a clean sheet?
Every game means a clean sheet. I mean, the negative rubbish around clean sheets is bizarre for me because every successful club is the best clean sheet record, the best defensive record. I just had that conversation with Eddie Gray today and he said ‘there’s only one way you get out of it like we did with Leeds, when we didn’t play well we made sure we got a clean sheet’.
If you don't listen to me, listen to Eddie Gray. If you don’t listen to him either listen to Pep or Alex Ferguson. They all win the league with the best clean sheet record.
Given the way the first week's shaped up, the opponents you had last Saturday, has it always been a bit of a recce this week to get to know what you've got available?
Well, it's balanced. It's balanced through the three lads, our three lads coming with me and I think the rest of the staff. It's balanced about we've got all this stuff and we've got to break this stuff down to a small amount in each area to deliver to the players because we can't overload them. There’s enough information and then there's too much information and then there's not enough information, we got to hit the middle bit of that, just enough information. I mean, I could spend hours on the training ground saying you have to do this here and that there. What we've got to try and do is break it into a lot of individual stuff on the screen, unit stuff and then a lot of stuff on the pitch because fatigue. I get the sport scientists shouting at me saying it's overloading, slow down. So you've got to be aware of everything because the last thing we want to do is leave our strength on the training but then as a coach you want to get through some certain things so hopefully we balanced that off very well this week to produce a much better performance than last week against City.
Is it better at the stage to spell it out to the players, better for them mentally, to say things like cannot lose on Saturday as opposed to I guess beating around the bush?
Yeah, they know themselves. I mean, their Premier League status is in jeopardy, I mean, the club worked so hard to get here and the first two years are always the hardest. In fact, contrary to what everybody says, year one's harder than year two. But then when year three comes around, I don't know what the percentage is now but when I first started in the early 2000s, we did those percentages and said we get to year three, then your chance of not getting relegated increases by another 25%. Then you go on to like West Ham kept them in the Premier League for two seasons, now look where they are. Bolton 10 seasons before I left them and they crumbled. If you get past year one or two you can then build for the future and a long-term future if you get that right so we're got to try and survive this year.
Oh, this is year three, isn’t it? Sorry about that, I slipped up there.
Do you think there's any prospect of having Tyler Adams back for any of these games?
No, Not that I believe, no. Sadly.
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