Sam Allardyce expects to sit down with members of the Leeds United board this week to discuss how the club moves forward into a pivotal summer. Leeds saw their relegation to the Championship confirmed in pitiful circumstances on Sunday afternoon as they lost 4-1 to Tottenham Hotspur at Elland Road to end a three-year stay in the Premier League.
The Whites struggled at the wrong end of the division for much of the season and rounding it off with a run of nine games without a win to seal their fate. Ultimately, after arriving at the club with just four games to go, there wasn’t a huge amount Allardyce could do to prevent United from surrendering their status in the top flight.
However, the head coach was still massively upset to have only picked up one point from the quartet of games he was given, alongside assistant coaches Robbie Keane and Karl Robinson. An inquest will already be underway at Elland Road as to where this campaign went wrong, but planning for next season must gather pace now, too, and deciding who will be in the hotseat come the start of pre-season is a huge decision that still needs to be made.
Allardyce didn’t go as far as to say he wanted the job permanently in the press conference that followed the final whistle on Sunday, but he does expect to meet with the club’s decision makers to talk through his experience in the coming days.
“I’ll have the discussion next week at some stage,” he said, when asked whether he'd put himself forward for the job on a permanent basis. “There's lots of opportunity when we can sit down and when we get over the disappointment of getting relegated.
“The last thing I wanted is to be the man that took Leeds United down. I tried all we possibly could try to get the players to do and get better results, me and Karl and Robbie particularly, who came alongside me at a short period of notice, very grateful for that.
“Even though I'm hugely disappointed, grateful for the opportunity and I think that the staff and what we've tried to do hasn't been good enough in terms of the results, but I thought we tried all we could try to get to get a better results out of the players, we’ve just not been able to achieve it.”
Asked whether he would trust the current board, ahead of a potential summer takeover, to make the right decision, he added: “Well, I can tell them what I think needs to be done and then they could say what they think, whatever they think.
“Obviously, how is the club going to go forward and who with, because we all know about is it going to be bought or is it going to stay the same? That factor actually is probably the first thing that needs to get sorted out before you even speak to me, if you're going to speak to me.
“I can't really say I've enjoyed it. I'm glad I came back. I tried my best to get Leeds out of trouble but I can't enjoy anything when I don’t win, it's just not me.
“But getting in the training ground every day and trying to make the players look at the situation they're in and get out of it, if anything I've enjoyed trying to do that. Particularly with Robbie and Karl, outstanding back-up.
“I didn't leave a stone unturned and it's really sad that Leeds are in this position and to the fans, I apologise that I didn't do better and the players didn't do better and try and win at least two out of the four games and give ourselves a bigger opportunity to stay in the Premier League.”
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