Boss with perfect play-off final record issues Leeds United advice with 9-time losers example

Ex-Whites boss Simon Grayson has a perfect managerial play-off final record - and one that he hopes can help Leeds United finally get it right.

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The play-offs were not kind to Grayson during his four years in charge of Leeds who were beaten by Millwall in the League One play-offs semi-finals under his tenure back in 2009.

One year later, Grayson and Leeds did not need the play-offs as a dramatic final day victory against Bristol Rovers sealed the division’s second automatic promotion spot.

Grayson and Leeds then missed out on a Championship play-offs place by one place and three points the following season and the manager’s time at Leeds was then ended the following February.

As play-off campaigns as a whole are concerned, it was none out of one for Grayson at Leeds. It has, though, been a totally different and perfect story elsewhere as a manager with Grayson possessing a 100 per cent record in play-off finals with three out of three.

Back in 2007, a 2-0 victory against Yeovil Town took Blackpool up out of League One and Grayson then repeated the trick at Huddersfield Town five years later as the Terriers beat Sheffield United on penalties.

In the bid for a hat-trick, history was then very much against Grayson and his Preston North End side three years later.

“I think we were nine times of getting as a club to the play-offs and never getting through,” recalls Grayson, whose side had indeed failed in nine previous play-offs attempts.

Even Leeds with their awful record have not been that bad. Ultimately, back in 2015, a 3-4 win against Swindon Town saw Preston end their hoodoo, and Grayson says there is no reason whatsoever why Leeds cannot break theirs in Sunday’s final against Southampton.

"I had a similar situation when I was at Preston,” Grayson tells the YEP via freebets.com, pressed on Leeds having never been promoted through the play-offs, five attempts all ending in tears.

Grayson added: “But my message to the players back then would be the same to the Leeds players now, ‘you had no part in any of the previous opportunities to get promoted by the play-offs, why not be the new batch of heroes that are going to break the records?’

"Records are there to be broken, you have got no mental scars of previous history. Supporters have, but players haven't so they should be going with the enthusiasm, the vigour, the confidence that we're one game away from the Premier League and we can go down in the history of this football club of being the first team to get promoted by the play-offs.

“That was my motivational speech right the way through the week leading up to the final (with Preston) and as the team left the dressing room going out on to the pitch just before prior to kick-off.

"None of them players should have any worries whatsoever about previous history because they've had nothing to do with it.

"Okay, there was two years ago, but of the current group of players from the Derby experience there is probably Liam Cooper who is old enough and wise enough to accept it and  understand it. But other than that there won't be any other player.”

Refreshing his mind with his own record as both a player and a manager, Grayson recalled: “"I've got 100 per cent as a manager. I have won three out of three.

"As a player, I lost the first two, we lost to Blackburn when I was at Leicester and then back in the day of two subs I was in the squad that travelled but didn’t play against Swindon.

"Then we won against Derby when I was captain, the first captain ever to win for Leicester at Wembley and then we won against Palace so I've won two and lost two as a player but won all three as a manager. Five out of seven isn't a bad ratio I suppose!"