Sam Allardyce delivered his verdict on the spy scandal surrounding Leeds United and shared he has tactics in order to protect whatever side he is managing from that sort of thing.
The experienced manager was asked for his thoughts about Marcelo Bielsa confessing he has spied on every team Leeds have faced this season, as transcribed by the Mirror, and shared it was more of an old school tactic in his opinion.
Allardyce revealed that technology has seen spying not really occur that much in the modern game and revealed that it doesn’t guarantee you a win if you conduct those sort of missions.
“No it doesn’t, it was more relevant in our day the sneaky side of it where managers didn’t have all the technology we had, didn’t have all the games, the type of date they had and because of that we will try and find out about a team, what system they played not so much how they are training but you get the shape and away they play,” said Allardyce on Sky Sports’ Goal on Sunday (Sky Sports Premier League, 11:06, January 20th).
“But since technology came in we can predict the opposition’s team, how they’re going to play very accurately, but occasionally, I’ve done this where I’ve decided not to let the team know what the team is and throw a surprise by playing a different way and going out and stunning the opposition as it’s completely different to how they’ve practised to play against.”
OPINION
Allardyce’s stance on Leeds spy scandal is clear even if he doesn’t condemn Bielsa’s actions. The manager refers to spying as being a sneaky side of football and kinda highlights how the game has moved on due to technology. Allardyce is also right with his reveal of the methods he uses to throw opponents off as surely this season, with Bielsa’s confession now public, teams will change the way they play when facing Leeds. While that is a risk for Leeds’ opponents it might be one that sees them get all three points. Just look at Stoke City on Saturday as Nathan Jones adopted a new system for his side to play and it worked like a dream, as his side emerged 2-1 winners. Bielsa will hopefully have ways to deal with Leeds’ opponents springing surprises in the second half of the season as with their promotion push looking strong as it stands, it’ll be a shame if they drop the ball in the second half of the campaign.