Allardyce ditches bravado and makes ‘brain space’ central to Leeds survival

I t was the sort of damp, unseasonal, May morning when low-lying grey cloud blanketed the Yorkshire countryside and only the car headlights spearing a path east fractured the gloom. Sam Allardyce has travelled to work in far worse conditions but, as he swung off the A1(M) at Wetherby and on to the winding B-road through apparently endless fields, his mood matched the weather.

Anyone expecting the new Leeds manager to stride through the training ground door in full showman mode, perhaps even accompanied by a blast of Tina Turner’s “Simply The Best,” would have been sorely disappointed on Friday. “Saturday morning, I’ll be pretty nervous,” says Allardyce. “And the nerves will carry on until kick-off.”

Indeed, as the 68-year-old calmly fielded questions from journalists before Saturday’s visit to Manchester City he seemed almost a different man from the “Big Sam” who, less than 48 hours earlier, had informed the media that “no one’s better than me; not Pep, not Klopp, not Arteta”. If that boast by Allardyce had been an attempt to deflect attention from his relegation-threatened players it worked. But the Premier League’s man of the moment has always been a bit of a chameleon and now he was reminding his audience he has always been rather more three-dimensional than initial appearances may suggest.

On Wednesday, Allardyce emerged from two years in retirement carrying his 6ft 3in frame with a hint of a swagger and dominating the room, but Friday revealed a more nuanced, more emotionally intelligent and, perhaps, counterintuitive Big Sam. Admittedly, he replied “absolutely” to the suggestion that, in Pep Guardiola’s shoes he, too, would be challenging for the treble, but that was about as far as the grandstanding went.

“I’ve