‘Don’t be daft’ – Allardyce questions hypocritical Klopp and Ten Hag over Newcastle criticism

Sam Allarydce has urged Erik ten Hag and Jurgen Klopp to look themselves in the mirror before questioning the time-wasting tactics of Newcastle.

Allardyce’s Leeds welcome Newcastle to Elland Road on Saturday in a crucial game in their bid to avoid relegation.

Eddie Howe’s side have come under scrutiny this season for their time-wasting, with Ten Hag labeling the Magpies’ tactics “annoying” back in February.

But Allardyce insists everyone is guilty of time-wasting and instead spoke out on ‘ball in play’, which he reckons could be problem for player fitness should rules be changed to increase the time.

“Who doesn’t do it?” Allardyce snapped when asked about Newcastle’s time-wasting. “Who complained? [Jurgen Klopp] well he time-wastes, [Erik ten Hag] he time-wastes. They all time-waste in the last five minutes when they’re winning 2-1. Don’t be daft!

“We’ve all been talking about ‘ball in play’ more than time-wasting and whether ‘ball in play’ can be improved. The game is as ferocious and quick enough as it is. Player fatigue and player injuries are strained more than ever before so if you speed the game up even more and increase the time on the pitch even more you’re going to get more injuries than you’ve ever got because it’s never been as quick as it is now.

“With it being so quick, recovery time becomes of the essence but because there are so many games there is no recovery time. Then you get more injuries and ultimately more chronic injuries which may limit a player’s career to a lot shorter than it should be.

“But we can’t do anything about that because the players ask for so much money we have to try and increase our profits and increase turnover to fund the players that are so expensive to bring into Premier League football.”

Allardyce, appointed by Leeds eight days ago in a last-ditch bid to retain top-flight status, takes charge of his first match at Elland Road for the club, who sit second bottom and two points from safety with three games to go.

: “The biggest thing that can happen is not lose. If we got three points I’d be 40 or 50 per cent thinking we could stay safe.

“We still have to win some games. We won’t stay up on 30 points. If we get nine points we’ll stay up, if we get six we might stay up. I want to be still in it when we play Tottenham (on the final day).”