Sam Allardyce won’t go down in history as one of Leeds United’s greatest ever managers.
Big Sam did all he could to keep Leeds up at the end of the 2022/23 season, but when you’re appointed with just four games to go, there’s only so much you can do.
Allardyce took over what was a real mess at the time, and speaking on the Under the Cosh Podcast, the gaffer has been discussing the problems in that team.
Allardyce says that he was stunned by just how unfit this Leeds team had become, claiming that both Javi Gracia and Jesse Marsch had destroyed the standards set by Marcelo Bielsa previously.
Sam Allardyce stunned by Leeds fitness levels
Allardyce spoke about his time at Elland Road.
“The biggest disappointment about Leeds was their fitness had gone from hero to zero since Bielsa leaving. In less than 12 months, they had gone from top of the tree to third from bottom. Two previous coaches had completely destroyed the fitness level of the team,” Allardyce said.
“We couldn’t maintain or sustain our level. I just couldn’t believe it. If they had the fitness levels they used to have we would definitely have a chance.
“We can stay in a game, they used to win games in the last five minutes Leeds, because they outsustained the fitness levels of the opposition.
“They were way off, miles away, in the bottom three of the Premier League. He was old school Bielsa – if you don’t run, you don’t play.”
Leeds completely transformed
Allardyce isn’t wrong, Leeds became a completely different team once Marcelo Bielsa left.
Bielsa turned, with all due respect, some bang-average footballers into Premier League stars by making sure they were the fittest players in the league.
The likes of Luke Ayling and Stuart Dallas were hitting levels that they couldn’t even have dreamt of, but once Bielsa had gone, that fitness faded and Leeds dropped like a stone.
Leeds made a number of mistakes on their way back to the Championship, and hiring two managers who were much less intense than Bielsa was a serious error in judgement.