‘Exactly what we deserved’ – Ex-Leeds United defender comments on relegation and Radrizzani silence

I think the first emotion I felt was a huge sadness, for everyone, players, fans, employees at the club. It’s extremely sad because it affects so many people in different ways. My first thought was just an enduring sadness of the situation but my second thought was really that we got kind of what we deserved, in that unfortunately over the course of season we just weren't good enough.

I'm a firm believer that table after 38 games and a whole season – it never lies. You're not unlucky, you're not lucky, you are deserving of where you end up. And I suppose the only thing is we weren’t actually close to the end, it was five points that was the difference. So even if we won, it wouldn't have mattered, but it just goes to show I think, unfortunately, the season wasn't a good one and with 31 points, we got exactly what we deserved and expected and that's relegation.

I think there's no doubt that we're in a position now where we need to have clarity, we need to have a vision. We need to understand what we need to do and what that plan is and who's doing it. And unfortunately, we don’t know any of those. And that's something that is frustrating.

There’s no doubt behind the scenes, the owners: Andrea and the 49ers, are working extremely hard on things but clearly, it's not been finalised whatever is going to happen. So, as each day ticks by it's just I think more and more difficult because every other club will be off and running and doing what they need to do because the Championship, looking at the diary and the calendar, is not too far around the corner. The seasons seem to get longer and longer.

To do the amount of work that we as a club need to do, we're going to be extremely hard pushed because a lot of decisions have to be made and whether they have been made already or not. It's just whoever comes in, whether it's the sporting director, whether it's the manager, whether it's new owners or not, all have to get across all this stuff and and really make sure we prepared as best we can for the new season coming because our best opportunity of course of getting back out the Championship is that first year with the parachute payments. We should certainly be a few yards ahead of the rest, but I think this delay and nothing happening makes it more difficult.

On club chairman Andrea Radrizzani’s present situation, as acquirer of Italian club Sampdoria and the expected arrival of the 49ers, Dorigo said:

We kind of knew in the background, Andrea was looking at purchasing the club back in Italy. There's been rumours of that for a little while but I honestly don't know [if it will accelerate Leeds' takeover], it sounds like it could but until someone comes out and says something, it's all kind of speculation, so it's a difficult time. It really is. Even just talking to the employees around the club, the uncertainty is unsettling, naturally so. I think the silence after going down. I think it is difficult.

Radrizzani did release a statement on Wednesday evening regarding the situation at Leeds United, apologising for the mistakes which led to relegation, but did not provide a clear indication whether he would remain in situ or relinquish majority control to 49ers Enterprises.

There's so much to do and there's no doubt that they have still been looking at the various scenarios in the last few months, obviously, and planning accordingly and a lot of decisions I'm sure will have been made but just need to kind of press the button.

I'm sure a lot of that is going on, you would have had to have done, but it's very hard to give it the final okay until we know exactly what's going on at the top of the club.

Other clubs [Leicester and Southampton], they have got clarity, and they're cracking on with things. You just always find that if you can get your work done earlier in the window and know what's going on, clearly you're ahead of the game and it's far easier the longer you go, the more difficult things get.

I don't think anyone is under any illusion that there is so much work that has to be done with the club because clearly what we've been doing hasn't worked. And on the player side, we can't keep going financially with this set of players, those sort of wages so things have to change. So, the sooner the better.

I think really the mindset now is that we need to learn all those lessons from what has happened and quickly switch to think: ‘Right, how are we gonna get back to the Premier League? What can we do?’

Looking at those young players [Gyabi, Gray, Joseph, Cresswell, Gelhardt], there's a lot of promise there, that there really is some good talent. It is very different, of course, stepping up to men's football and into that first team. A lot have tried and failed, so I don't think we should be putting too much pressure on those young lads but there's no doubt that those sort of players will be important parts of the squad and then let's see how they've been developed.