Karl Robinson: everything you need to know about Sam Allardyce’s Leeds United assistant manager

Sam Allardye is the new head coach of Leeds United with the club making the decision to part company with Javi Gracia in favour of the ex-England boss.

Arriving at Elland Road alongside the 68-year old will be Karl Robinson, who joins as assistant manager having himself been the boss of several high-profile EFL clubs in recent years. With just four games remaining in the Premier League season the duo have been charged with securing survival for the club in what is a tightly contested battle at the bottom of the table.

Here is everything you need to know about Leeds’ new assistant manager:

Who is Karl Robinson? Everything you need to know about Sam Allardyce’s Leeds United assistant manager

Karl Robinson is an experienced coach and manager who has worked at and been head coach of several clubs across the English Football League in recent years. The 42-year old was product of the Everton youth academy and had a short playing career that spanned a little over eight years that saw him turn out for clubs across Wales and the English national leagues such as Rhyl and Warrington Town.

He began his coaching career with Liverpool’s youth academy and later worked at Blackburn Rovers before taking on his first head coach role in 2010. That was with MK Dons where he had the most successful period of his career, managing them up until 2016 and guiding them to the EFL Championship for the first and so far only time in their club’s history in 2015.

Having finished as runners-up in League One they struggled in the second tier and were immediately relegated back to the division below after finishing 23rd in a season where Leeds United came 13th. In May 2016 Leeds approached Robinson to become their new head coach but he tunred the opportunity down.

“The Leeds one in 2016 was an interesting story,” Robinson told the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast in March.

“I met them on the Friday. I didn’t sleep on the Friday, I didn’t sleep on the Saturday so something didn’t feel right. Leeds weren’t the Leeds they were today, but they were still Leeds.

“I actually saw Sam Allardyce on the Monday and he said to go and meet them again, so I arranged to meet them and they weren’t there – 10am not there, 10.30am not there – so I phoned Sam and asked what to do, and he said to wait until 11am. Next thing they turned up and the conversation was a little erratic, unstable, and I thought, this isn’t me. It didn’t feel right.

“The fact that it was Leeds, it just wasn’t the right time. I’d just got relegated a few days before with MK Dons, and I felt so guilty for that. My personality meant I had a lot of guilt about that relegation – but then I got sacked by MK Dons two months later!”

After he was relieved of his duties at MK Dons he wasn’t out of the game long and was soon appointed head coach of Charlton Athletic. He spent just under two seasons at The Valley before leaving the club by mutual consent and was named Oxford United boss in March 2018. He was sacked by Oxford in February this year.