Jamie Carragher believes it is 'sad' to see 'big club' Leeds United suffer relegation from the Premier League following a three-year stay. However, the Sky Sports pundit believes 'really poor individual defenders' were always going to undermine Sam Allardyce's best efforts.
The Whites turned to the former England boss with just four matches remaining in a desperate bid to secure survival. In the end though, Allardyce was only able to deliver a single point with relegation confirmed on the final day with a heavy home defeat to Tottenham.
Leeds' conceded 11 goals during Allardyce's brief tenure, including four in the loss to Tottenham which extinguished their unlikely survival hopes. Carragher understood the club's decision to bring in the former England boss, but believes weaknesses in their backline were always going to prove costly.
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He told Sky Sports: "They’ve had a completely different style of football with two or three different managers. Front foot and energetic, it was exciting as neutral to watch them but I could understand you bring Sam Allardyce in and try and do something completely different, try and keep clean sheets and be difficult to beat.
"Change the goalkeeper - which I think he had to do - but I just think when I watch Leeds they’ve got really poor individual defenders who are always making mistakes, and I actually didn’t believe they could win that game today, even though Tottenham were on such a poor run. We enjoyed them coming back and it was one of those clubs we all wanted to come back, who had been out of the Premier League for a long time. It’s a big club so it will be sad to lose them."