Inside tearful Leeds United team meeting as Stuart Dallas reveals date request for team-mates

On Wednesday Dallas announced to the world his retirement from the professional game, due to a complex 2022 knee injury and femoral fracture, but not before standing in front of the Whites squad and staff to inform them first. Not wanting to distract from the promotion push, the Ulsterman consulted initially with boss Daniel Farke before deciding when to deliver his news. Farke was happy for Dallas to operate on his own terms and it was agreed that Dallas would tell the team on Wednesday morning before their preparations for Blackburn Rovers at home began in earnest.

"I didn't want that to be a distraction to the team and I spoke to the manager the other day about this, that if he had said to me 'Listen, I want you to announce it at the end of the season', I'd have happily done that," Dallas told the YEP on Wednesday afternoon. "But he was adamant that he wanted it on my terms as well. So I didn't want to announce it between the two games or even before the Coventry game and we think this is the right time, but I didn't want it to be a distraction to the team and I don't think it will be because obviously they're professionals and I'm hoping it might help them a bit and spur them on."

Having wrapped his head around the most difficult of decisions after two tough years of rehabilitation and seven surgeries, the idea of telling his friends in the dressing room weighed heavily on Dallas.

"Jesus, it was hard," he said. "I knew it was gonna be hard. I think the last couple of days I've been really, really nervous about it because these are the people who I spend the most time with, apart from family, every day I'm with them. The relationships I have with them, we speak about Coops and the relationship I have with him, but other players who I've been with for a long time you know Patrick [Bamford] and even the likes of Illan [Meslier] and Pascal [Struijk] who have been here around it and the younger players that have come in, players who I haven't even had the chance to play with, new players. I'd like to think that I have a really close relationship with every player so it was difficult to stand up there and speak in front of them. There was a few tears at the start and when I got that out of the way I was able to speak.

“I said to them 'you boys have been part of this journey with me', because they probably don't know, they haven't realised it, I know for a fact they haven't realised that but you know they've got me through it. Times when I'm when I've come in when there's days that have been really really hard and difficult because practically for two years, I've been in most days and they have got me through it. The positive energy within the group is incredible. The relationship I have was not just one, two, three, four or five players, with every single player, with every member of stuff, they have got me through it. They haven't realised that.”

As he stood before them to announce his decision Dallas felt indebted to the staff members, too. He has credited the Leeds medical team for the work they did to help him get healthy for life after football, let alone the efforts to try and resurrect his career from the wreckage of a devastating collision with Jack Grealish. And Farke's side of the backroom have come in for praise from Dallas too, including the manager.

"The staff have been phenomenal with me as well," he said. "We spoke about the players earlier, but the staff, Daniel, the way he has dealt with it from when he came in, it's not easy for a manager coming in and not having a player available to him. But in other circumstances you know some managers just put you to the side and don't involve you but the way he has kept me involved with the team, the space and the time that he has given me, he's not put any pressure on me to get back and that has helped me a lot. He's kept me involved with the group, with him and his staff and I'm really, really grateful to him for that. I'm disappointed that I haven't been able to play for him because I think that if I had been fit and available, it would have been nice to do that. And just all the staff around the place, even the security man on the gate I have a good relationship with them the groundsmen, I enjoy everybody's company, they enjoy mine and I'll miss that. You know what I mean? The medical staff, the sports science staff, everybody who has helped me, the kitchen staff, everyone has played a major part in my career here at Leeds and it was hard to stand up there in front of them."

Although the emotion did spill over for the 32-year-old, he was able to deliver a message to the rest of the players. His rehab work at Thorp Arch is due to carry on to the end of the current campaign and he has no desire to be working at Thorp Arch beyond the first week in May.

"I think I tried not to make eye contact with anybody so I was probably looking at the roof a few times or looking down but that was difficult, I feel a relief now that I've got that out of the way, because I've been stressing a bit over the last couple of days about that if I'm being honest but they've been brilliant with me and as I say I'm still gonna be around," he said. "I don't want to make it too sad. I've just told them I don't want to be in until the end of May. I want to be off at the start of May. They've got to sort that out."