So short a tenure leaves little scope to judge.
It was soft and depressed, a discernible game plan hard to identify at 2-1 down, and the experience raised a couple of possibilities: that Allardyce could not be expected to intervene in so short a time, that Premier League football has moved on from him, or both. Leeds, having scored through Rodrigo after 17 minutes, became more and more passive, fell apart at the back, and were inexplicably reliant on Rodrigo during a closing period in which injury badly compromised his movement. Even if Leeds and Allardyce somehow pull it off against Tottenham next Sunday, the image that remains will be of ethereal appearance like yesterday’s at West Ham when, in the midst of a urine-weak second half, it seemed like Leeds needed reminding of their predicament, of the time on the clock in the last-chance saloon. There is, of course, chance in anything but any club who go into the final weekend with 31 points and no wins in eight have no right to anything, and survival least of all. But outside West Ham after a 3-1 defeat, an Allardyce face mask was strewn on the concourse, tossed away, unwanted, no home to go to. It was never meant to be, Big Sam in charge of a team whose football once made Leeds a city of culture, but there comes a day when a means to an end is worth a go when a Weston McKennie long throw volleyed in by Rodrigo - route one yielding the first goal at West Ham, Allardyce’s tactics stereotyped - is possible to love in a one-night-stand kind of way because when trouble looms, any solution will do. Not even he could pretend that survival next weekend would represent a triumph of coaching. Leeds owner Andrea Radrizzani offered Elland Road as security in deal to buy SampdoriaĬult potential has evaporated.A bonus was riding on the avoidance of relegation but nobody would stake that fiver on him or Leeds dabbling in miracles. Down on the touchline at West Ham, halfway through the first half, Allardyce stumbled across a stray £5 note by his technical area but if he thought the find meant his luck was in, it could end up being all the extra he earns in pursuit of survival.
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