‘Prison’: Sam Allardyce explains what mood at Leeds was like when he arrived

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Sam Allardyce has claimed Leeds United’s training ground was a like a ‘prison’ when he first arrived at the club last month.

Allardyce was speaking on the No Tippy Tappy Football Podcast, where he explained how changing the mood around Thorp Arch was his first port of call.

The 68-year-old was brought in at the beginning of last month with just four matches to play following the sacking of Javi Gracia.

Gracia was dismissed due to a dismal run of results in April and Allardyce was seen as someone who could galvanise the squad quickly to secure survival.

However, his late appointment ultimately did not work out as Leeds picked up just one point under his tenure and were relegated to the Championship.

Allardyce labels Thorp Arch a ‘prison’

April was the busiest month of the season for Leeds as they played seven Premier League matches, a run which included some pivotal fixtures with Nottingham Forest, Leicester City and Bournemouth.

Leeds, though, were able to win just once in that period and from half time onwards of the Crystal Palace defeat, the players just seemed to fall apart.

Allardyce claimed when he first arrived the Leeds squad had not had a single day off in almost a month, which could be why they fell apart so badly under Gracia.

He said: “We relaxed the players and gave them some time off. When we first got there they hadn’t had a day off in 24/25 days, been in every single day. That becomes more like, instead of a pleasant training ground, a prison, claustrophobic.

“So we gave some time off and we saw the benefit of that physically on the pitch because the levels of high intensity and speed went right up compared to what it was before we got there.

“Obviously from the mentality and concentration point of view we let ourselves down with the mistakes we made.”

In hearing this, it is clear Gracia hit the panic button during the latter stages of his reign and flogging the players like this clearly had no benefit.

The first couple of matches under Allardyce showed some promise but clearly like he said, the squad could just not handle the mental aspect of a relegation battle.