Leeds United boss Sam Allardyce pre-Newcastle United press conference every word on Whites changes, survival target, Eddie Gray and Magpies must

“We would still have to win some games. Whether they won or whether they lost we’d still have to win some games to stay up. We won’t stay up with 30 points, nobody’s ever going to do it, nobody ever will. We’ve got nine points to go for. We know if we get nine points which is a massive ask we’ll stay up. If we get six, we might do, if we get five. What are we going to be? I have to say this at this moment in time, I want to be still in it when we play Tottenham, that’s what I want to be. I would be very satisfied if when we play Tottenham we are still in it.”

“Everbody has trained for us to do enough. We’ll make a couple of changes based on what the Newcastle team is and how we want to play against Newcastle so we’ll make a couple of changes which you’ll find out about when the team sheet goes in. Oh, it doesn’t go in anymore does it. When it gets electronically flipped on now. That and the barcode gets on my nerves but never mind.”

“It’s speculation, it’s not worth talking about anymore. You had a big enough headline off me last week, you’re not going to get any more. By the way, all those who criticised me about sounding a bit thick, all I was doing was diversifying off the players onto myself, which was a great tactic that I picked up Alex Ferguson so there was no pressure on the players because I took it all, I took all the stick by ooo look at him and listen to him but there we go. There’s none of that this week, it’s purely and simply focusing on Newcastle and trying to get the three points that we desperately need. But I have said to the players and I will say it now, when we come off the field on Saturday, we can’t afford to lose. We must get something.”

“I loved playing here as the away team, I loved the atmosphere. I came as a manager and the same - and the historical nature of the club. Yes, it might be an old stadium but you see Elland Road, what it stands for, the old days when I was growing up watching that team. I was speaking to Eddie Gray today at great length. He’s got a lot of his grandsons here in the academy but he was looking really fit. I was wondering if he could put his boots on and play because he is the fittest 75 year old I have seen for a long time. But he’s still around the club, still comes into a club and loves it that much but it’s a great football club.”

“It’s a big decision. I don’t mind making big decisions. But whether it’s the right decision, we have to calculate that right. The young lad has got the ability and got the skill, it’s whether we think he could can handle the occassion because this is a cauldron for us to go in and be able to perform at the highest level we can with the pressure that we’ve put on ourselves under by the position that we’re in. So I suppose you could get a youngster that goes in and doesn’t have that amount of stress because he just wants to go in and play football and can play with a bit of freedom, or he could freeze quite easily. But in saying that, there’s many of the players, young or old could do that on Saturday. What I’m hoping for is good mental resilience that allows them to perform at their highest quality. The fear needs to drive them on, the fear of relegation, the fear of losing their Premier League status should make them hopefully fight and fight hard for their status and their position at Leeds United.”

“I am very pleased with the attitude of the players. I think what is or did surprise me is the fact that they have to lift up their energy levels that little bit more to compete at the highest levelbBecause I think that when you’re hammered as much as they’ve been hammered, all of a sudden we call it the lead boots come on and we have to lift the lead boots off and put the lightweight boots back on and get running around as much as we possibly can because without the stamina, the physical effort, the runs, the high speed runs, with intelligence you’ll get nowhere in this game because the only reason you stop playing football is you can’t run anymore. So when you can’t run anymore, you can’t play professional football so we need the highest level of stamina and speed and high intensity running, obviously with intelligence and in the right area and then we need the right amount of skill and delivery and understanding to come together to create opportunities against Newcastle.”

“I think it’s been helpful. I suppose when I looked at it and thought, Man City, Newcastle, West Ham, Tottenham, you know, that’s not going to be easy, but at least it had one week free every week to get to try and help and try and get better and better as each game comes around. The biggest thing that can happen to us is not lose because at least we get a point on the board. If we got three, I’m 40-50 per cent thinking we could stay safe now.”

“No, it won’t be over if it’s over but that would mean that we’re going into two games needing two wins. Even then that might not be enough. But to give ourselves the best chance we’ve got to try and get a point on the board but more importantly three if we can.”

“Every game means a clean sheet. The negative rubbish around clean sheets is bizarre for me. Because every successful club has the best clean sheet record, the best defensive record. I just had that conversation with Eddie Gray today and he said there’s only one way you get out of it Sam, like we did at Leeds when we didn’t play so well, we made sure we got a clean sheet. So if you don’t listen to me, listen to Eddie Gray. And if you don’t listen to me listen to Pep and if you don’t listen to me listen to Alex Ferguson because they all win the league with the best clean sheet record.”

“lt’s balanced. It’s balanced with the three lads that have come in with me and the rest of the staff. It’s balanced. We’ve got all this stuff and we’ve got to break this stuff down to a small amount in each area to deliver to the players because we can’t overload them. There’s that old saying, there’s enough information and then there’s too much information and then there’s not enough information. We’ve got hit the middle bit of that. just enough information. We could spend hours on the training ground saying you’ve got to do this and got to do that there and move up the pitch to do this and do that. What we’ve got to try and do is break it into a lot of individual stuff on the screen, a lot of unit stuff and then a lot of stuff on the pitch because of fatigue. And I get sports scientists shouting at me saying ‘it’s overloading, it’s overloading’ so you have got to be aware of everything because the last thing we want to do is leave our strength on the training ground but then as a coach you want to get through some certain things. So hopefully we’ve balanced that off very well this week to produce a much better performance than last week against City.”