Leeds Survival Relies on Allardyce Prioritizing 'Brain Space' Over Bravado

On a damp and unseasonal May morning, with low-lying grey clouds engulfing the Yorkshire countryside, Sam Allardyce made his way to work. It was a familiar journey, but as he turned onto the winding B-road, his mood matched the weather. Those expecting the new Leeds manager to arrive in a showman mode would have been disappointed. Allardyce appeared calm and collected, fielding questions from journalists ahead of the team's visit to Manchester City on Saturday.

Allardyce had made headlines earlier for stating that no one was better than him, not even Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, or Mikel Arteta. While the boast may have been an attempt to deflect attention from his relegation-threatened players, Allardyce showed a more nuanced side in his interview. He discussed how he has been talking to his players about controlling their minds and mindfulness, and how he has been trying to understand their personalities better. Allardyce believes that if players are not in the right frame of mind, it is difficult for them to produce their best.

The statistics suggest that Leeds face a tough battle to stay out of the relegation zone, but Allardyce believes that giving his players enough brain space and time off is key to their success. He does not plan on drilling them with tactical instruction but rather affording them the opportunity to rest and recover.

“They can create very good mindsets and prepare to play better by relaxing at home. They’re in the Premier League because they’ve got the best football brains, the best decision-making ability. You can have much more skilled players in the lower divisions but unfortunately their brains don’t work as quickly. But all brains need rest.”

Which rather begs the question as to whether Meslier, Leeds’s gifted but out-of-form goalkeeper, requires a sabbatical. Should Allardyce stick with the 23-year-old Frenchman or offer the former Everton keeper Joel Robles his Leeds debut? “I don’t see any problems with Illan in training but there’s no real pressure there,” the manager says. “Picking the goalkeeper will be one of my biggest decisions.”

All this talk of rest and relaxation emphasised precisely what a volte face Leeds have performed since sacking the workaholic Bielsa 14 months ago. “To get Big Sam in to play very, very basic football just to keep you up feels like the plan must have gone so badly wrong,” says Simon Rix, bassist with the Kaiser Chiefs, during a recent Radio Leeds podcast. “Everything’s broken, the players look broken, the staff look broken, the ownership looks broken.”

The majority of Rix’s fellow Leeds supporters blame the club’s former director of football, Victor Orta, sacked alongside Gracia last week, for a slavish obsession with pressing which led him to appoint Marsch largely because the American followed a broadly similar tactical template to the still revered Bielsa.

At least Andrea Radrizzani, the club’s increasingly frazzled owner, can rest assured Allardyce’s ability to detach his emotions should help him remain objective during the four games that remain to be played this season. “Some managers like emotional attachment but they can easily get paranoid,” says Gracia’s successor. “The calmer you are the better judgments you’ll make.”

Even so, the distracted haste with which Allardyce parked his car on Friday, leaving it straddling two bays and denying the kit man sufficient space to squeeze in alongside, indicated he is far from dispassionate about his latest assignment.