'Not the time to gamble' - Leeds United icon’s thoughts on manager shortlist and 'unsettling' situation

On an agreement being reached in principle for the takeover of Leeds United.

It certainly is positive. What's been clear over the last 18 months or so is that a change of ownership was coming. I think once that becomes known in the background, I think it's just unsettling until it actually happens.

As time went on, it got more and more important that it got done. Everyone of course, was waiting for it to get done on that Monday after relegation, but it wasn't quite finalised. From that point on, you're thinking: ‘Well, we're now a little bit behind everyone else and this is making it even more difficult for us’.

It's a challenge anyway, getting relegated, and all the things that happen to go along with that, but also being behind with players comings and goings puts you on the backfoot for the next season, but at least we've got there. It's been a little bit longer than everyone I'm sure would have liked but I think there is certainly hope and a bright future. just waiting to see what 49ers are going to do.

I think we also need to say obviously what Andrea [Radrizzani] has done. I think back to my time before Andrea came to the club and and what it was like and where we were, what we had at the ground and the training ground and clearly we've come a hell of a long way. We've had one fantastic journey. Unfortunately, I think with Andrea, we just ran out of steam at the wrong time. And here we go again with the new owners.

On Leeds’ hunt for a new manager.

I think the names getting bandied around are positive, very positive. What I also quite like is that most of them, or nearly all the ones that are being talked about, understand English football, have experience at the right level that is required and can come in and hit the ground running so we're not gambling.

That's really important, the calibre of management mentioned is very high. Obviously, I think Brendan Rodgers, his CV would be a great addition but I'm sure there's others there that would be itching to get in that hot seat and steer Leeds United back to the Premier League.

It's very important that the 49ers, the first thing they do, obviously, is go and appoint a manager. It's got to be a statement of intent that they're going forward. So, it's good to see that those calibre of names being mentioned.

It’s like the signings we’ll also make as well. You can go to Europe and get a player that’s clearly got an excellent reputation doing extremely well and you can get him for a lot less than you would have [to pay for] a British-based player. But the difference here is you're not quite sure if it's going to work out. Sometimes it does and it's a huge success, and the player’s value will go up, but then oppositely a lot of the times, it doesn't work because it's very, very different.

I think you could probably take a little bit more of a gamble with players but simply with a manager, we don't want to be doing that. This is not the time to gamble. This is the time to get back to a solid foundation and really build the future that someone certainly leading the team, has had experience and all those people [Rodgers, Daniel Farke, Scott Parker] have so that's a real positive.

I think what you certainly need is a clear vision, a really clear vision from the manager, how he wants to play, how he wants each individual player to play. A lot of the best ones had such an attention to detail, but it's also the recruitment side of it and it's really important that obviously after the manager that we get a sporting director and they really need to work in unison as well because a strong group is required and then adding the right sort of player, whether that's in a leadership [role] or whatever it may [be] as a character-wise, it's really important that balance.

When I played you didn’t have to be the best friends with all your teammates, but you really got to have a common goal and respect for each other. And that's led by that manager with that vision. And so that is important.

Hopefully that's exactly what we get.