Whites captain Liam Cooper admits he is expecting a ‘mass exit of players’ from the club over the summer transfer window but has already called on those who do stay to come back together and aim to get promoted straight back into the Premier League.
Leeds United’s three-year stay in the top flight came to an end on Sunday with Everton’s victory over Bournemouth rendering the result Sam Allardyce’s side got functionally meaningless – but they had collapsed to a 4-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur at Elland Road regardless.
A devastated Cooper revealed after the game that he had issued a cry to his teammates to ‘come back fighting’ once the new Championship campaign gets under way in August – however many of them actually remain at the club.
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The Leeds skipper told BBC Sport: “We got off to the worst possible start. We talked about it all week, the last few weeks: building ourselves into games and not making errors. [Then] you make an error and you go one behind. It’s tough. I thought we responded well: the gaffer’s just said there we had plenty of shots [but] only two shots on target. Yeah, devastated.
“Maybe it was sealed elsewhere but we wanted to win our game and we’ve not managed to do that. Like I say, we’re just devastated for ourselves but mostly the supporters. They deserve to be in this league and we’ve let them down. I’ve just told the boys in there, all the crap that comes with it, you’ve got to take it on the chin and come back fighting next year.
“We know how difficult it is to get out of the Championship and we know what a relegation means: it means it’s probably going to be a mass exit of players, and if you are lucky enough to be at this club next year, we’re going to need everybody aligned and ready to have a right go. We know how difficult it was to get out last time and we need to go and do that again.
“Fair play to the gaffer, he’s come in and tried to eradicate the errors, and I think it’s all on us as a team – we’ve made mistakes and it’s tough right now to find the words for how we’re feeling. We’ve let a lot of people down and we’ve got to take it on the chin and come back fighting next year.”
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