Leeds United CEO Angus Kinnear believes managerial appointments and player recruitment led to the club’s relegation from the Premier League last season.
Kinnear sat down with The Square Ball podcast to discuss what went down behind the scenes at Elland Road this summer. Leeds United were relegated with just 31 points from their 38 games. The club only managed seven wins, going through three head coaches during the season.
Kinnear revealed that, the club failed to do a lot of things on the pitch and that’s what led to relegation to the Championship:
“That’s caused us issues on the pitch. When you speak to my counterparts in the Premier League, if you get one managerial appointment wrong, you have a very high chance of going down. Similarly, if you have a bad window and the players you recruit don’t work, you have a very high chance of going down. Both of those things coincided last year.”
The Whites made just over 11 first team signings in the 2022/23 season, but they failed to make much of an impact on the pitch:
“From a supporter perspective, the sense that things were spiralling out of control was probably linked to the fact that we’ve managed to coincide getting relegated with a fairly challenging owner transition. If we had a long-term custodian in the shape of the 49ers and maybe they’d bought (the club) a year earlier, perhaps the fanbase would have been more confident about the ability to return.
“I see how they perceive a position where the club was without control. But I don’t think we are. We’re back in control and we’ve got a very strong foundation for the season.”
