UP-PILL BATTLE
More thrills like this and Sam will have to keep taking the tablets
SAM ALLARDYCE admits the stress of trying to keep Leeds in the Premier League is driving him to drugs.
And he has only been in charge of the strugglers for two games!
Time will tell if the gripping 2-2 draw with high-flying Newcastle at Elland Road will prove to be a crucial point gained or two dropped.
Leeds went ahead through Luke Ayling, but missed a golden chance to make it 2-0 before half-time when Patrick Bamford saw his penalty saved by Toon keeper Nick Pope.
Within 60 seconds Newcastle had earned a spot-kick of their own which Callum Wilson converted.
Wilson then fired the visitors ahead with his second penalty of the game following catastrophic defending from Junior Firpo, who was also sent off near the end, only to see Rasmus Kristensen level the scores with a powerful strike.
The end result from all the chaos is that Leeds remain in the bottom three, with just West Ham and Tottenham to face before their fate is decided.
But in the meantime, Allardyce is getting all the help he can as he looks to take Leeds’ survival scrap down to the last kick of a long and difficult season.
Allardyce said: “I needed two Valium when I came off to calm me down.
“I enjoyed it actually. I did. I was nervous before the game because I wanted to give the fans something.
“But what the lads did for me and the rest of the backroom staff and the fans and themselves gave me some hope about us going forward.
“They tried their very best and I can’t ask for any more than that.
“The fans were wonderful. I’ve always known it’s wonderful. I’ve been coming here as a player and as a manager for many, many years, so we needed them and they stuck with us.
“I thought, ‘You’re glad you’ve come back now, aren’t you?’ And I was.”
One thing Allardyce was less pleased about was his players’ ability to keep putting themselves in trouble.
The former England boss knows if Leeds continue to make life hard for themselves then it will make the uphill battle to survive even more difficult.
He added: “We shot ourselves in the foot. But also, we showed enough to say that if we cut out those mistakes we can get three points perhaps. We were playing the third in the league and nearly or should have won in my opinion. But that’s down to it being our fault, giving two penalties away and missing one.”
The result left Newcastle boss Eddie Howe with mixed feelings as he looks to close out a top-four finish and Champions League qualification.
Howe, whose side remain third, four points head of Liverpool, who play tonight, said: “It was a strange game. “Ultimately we feel disappointed, but even so it could prove to be a crucial point. You don’t know.
“We stood up to the challenge, but just a couple of details let us down.
“At the start of the season, you would have snapped someone’s hands off if they said it would be in our own hands.”