A round-up of what the national media are reporting after Sam Allardyce's appointment as manager of Leeds United yesterday morning.
'Metaphorical hoops of flame'
"The 68-year-old has plenty of critics but a close examination of the former England coach’s often impressive body of work at, among other clubs, Bolton, Blackburn, Sunderland and Crystal Palace, indicates that Pep Guardiola was not exaggerating that much when he dubbed Allardyce “a genius”," Louise Taylor wrote for the Guardian.
"Admittedly Big Sam remains an acquired taste but even the arch purist Guardiola appreciates Allardyce’s role as a pioneer of elite football’s now routine use of data analysis, sports science and psychology.
"The trip to the Etihad Stadium represents the first of a formidable-looking quartet of fixtures also involving a home date with Newcastle, a visit to West Ham and a final-day game against Tottenham at Elland Road. Staying up will surely involve Allardyce persuading Junior Firpo and co to leap through metaphorical hoops of flame.
"Although his tactics have always been far too nuanced to lend too much credence to José Mourinho’s claim that Allardyce played “19th-century football”, Leeds fans had never been overly taken by a man whose Bolton side sealed Leeds’s relegation to the Championship with a 4-1 win at the Reebok Stadium on 2 May 2004.
"Who, back then, could have imagined that 19 years to the day after that nadir in West Yorkshire football history Allardyce would be lined up as Leeds’s third official manager of an intensely troubled season?"
'The power of belief'
"These dreamers with hopes of a new way, seeking a De Zerbi or a Bielsa, and finessing a bottom half wage budget into a Europa League qualification place. So they return to the last refuge of those facing the single biggest overnight revenue fall in world sport, also known as relegation to the Championship. Where have all these big dreams brought them? Back to Big Sam," Sam Wallace wrote for the Telegraph.
"Leeds United have left it late. At West Bromwich Albion where the spell was broken at last two years ago and Sam Allardyce was finally in charge of a side that was relegated from the Premier League he arrived just before Christmas. He came in at Everton at the end of November 2017 and took them from 19th to an eighth-place finish. At Crystal Palace the previous year he had arrived on Christmas Eve and secured safety with a single game of the season to play.
"Each time he had the benefit of a January transfer window and even if it did not always deliver what he had hoped for, the psychological aspect of the very possibility of Allardyce signing players cannot in itself be discounted. His last job before the brief England reign was saving Sunderland following an October appointment in 2015 of that year. His record is impressive but saving the season with four games left might just be the biggest challenge of all.
"Leeds United, for whom Allardyce is the choice to be their third manager of the season, are out of the relegation zone on goal difference alone. There will be no January transfer window. No scope to change much about the players’ fitness or drill them extensively. The first test that awaits, is away on Saturday against arguably the best side in Europe, Manchester City. After that there are three games to save the season: Newcastle, West Ham and Tottenham.
"For Allardyce it would seem on the face of it that there is precious little he can affect. Yet for these kinds of managers it is never that bleak. They always believe that tweaks can be made, jaded players galvanised, the season saved. That is a significant part of why they are invited to take on the challenge – the power of belief. They never get relegated; they just run out of games."
'The old street fighter'
"Sam Allardyce was probably resigned to never receiving another call of desperation from a club in crisis after his failure to keep West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League two years ago," Phil McNulty wrote for BBC Sport.
"It was the 68-year-old's first relegation from the top flight after never suffering the drop at Bolton Wanderers, Newcastle United, West Ham United, Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Everton.
"Allardyce's time, it appeared, had finally passed.
"And yet the old street fighter has suddenly found another taker for his well-honed 'Fireman Sam' routine in Leeds United, with only four league games to pull off survival at a club in meltdown following the sacking of manager Javi Gracia and director of football Victor Orta.
"Allardyce's appointment caps a dysfunctional period at Elland Road, where the club has moved from the all-out attacking intensity of the adored Marcelo Bielsa, through the failures of Jesse Marsch and Gracia, to the arch-pragmatist former England manager.
"Keep Leeds up and he will be hailed as a miracle-working hero. If Leeds go down he will not be blamed after inheriting a team seemingly in terminal decline with only four games to save them."
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