“We tried to fight back” – Sam Allardyce reflects on Leeds’ relegation to the Championship

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Sam Allardyce says that his Leeds United side made bad mistakes at the worst possible time as a 4-1 loss to Tottenham sees them relegated from the Premier League.

Leeds fans will have been full of hope that Allardyce could have guided the club to all three points in a must-win game against a rocky Tottenham side at Elland Road, but it did not start well for them, as Harry Kane scored after just two minutes with a nice finish from the edge of the box.

The score remained 1-0 at half-time and Allardyce will have given his side some words of encouragement at the break, but two minutes into the second period, they conceded again as Kane fed Pedro Porro on the right and the Spaniard finished confidently past Joel Robles.

Jack Harrison gave Leeds hope on 67 minutes with a strike from 12 yards out but again two minutes later, they were opened up again as Kane drove down the left wing and into the area before curling home, and that was followed by a 95th-minute solo wondergoal from the set-to-depart Lucas Moura to cap off a happy day for Spurs.

The defeat meant Leeds’ three-year stay in the Premier League came to an end as Leicester City and Southampton joined them in dropping down to the Championship and post-match to BT Sport, Allardyce was straight to the point about where it went wrong for his side today.

Leeds end the season having won the least amount of games compared to any other side (7)

We made mistakes and tried to fight our way back, but we couldn’t find the back of the net despite our 19 attempts on goal, of which just two were on target.

I wanted to go out with a sense of pride today, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.”

Leeds will no doubt want to bounce back to the Premier League at the first time of asking and Allardyce was asked whether he’d want to be involved as manager again next season.

I can only come to that decision if they still want me and it also depends on what the strategy of the football club will look like. If everything is aligned between us, then we’ll see.”

A brutal end to the season for Leeds, but the ownership will no doubt be looking at the best way to get back to England’s top division as soon as possible.

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