LEEDS UNITED'S Scottish manager Steve Evans has been granted an unexpected stay of execution by the club's controversial owner Massimo Cellino.
But it does seem inevitable that the 53-year-old, never a popular figure among his own supporters, will become the sixth manager to be sacked by the Italian in just over two years.
It appeared Cellino was ready to act after Leeds lost four goals in 20 first-half minutes to Brighton on Monday night. He left the game at half-time and instructed Evans not to speak to any media after the match, it ended 4-0, which was taken as a sign that that Scot had been fired.
Brian McDermott, Dave Hockaday, Darko Milanic, Neil Redfearn and Uwe Rosler have all lost their jobs since Cellino's colourful time at Elland Road began in January 2014. Evans is actually the longest serving Leeds manager out of the six.
Leeds probably have enough points to avoid relegation but defeat at home to second bottom Bolton Wanderers this Saturday will likely see Evans lose his job.
His team have the unenviable record of being the lowest scorers in the English Championship over the last ten matches. They have managed only seven goals in that time.
Cellino reportedly told @SkySportsNewsHQ that while he was sorry for the supporters who travelled such a long distance on a Monday evening, he would not be sacking Evans but that he was "embarrassed by the result and will invest in the summer."
After the match at Brighton, Evans' assistant Paul Raynor said: “It was simply shambolic. The manager is in there dissecting it with the players. I don’t blame Cellino walking out. He doesn’t want to be sat there watching that. It was unacceptable.”
Glaswegian Evans played for, among others, St Johnstone and Albion Rovers and enjoyed relative success as a manager at Rotherham before his left-field appointment by Cellino last October. On that every day, the English Football League revealed Cellino had been disqualified as Leeds Owner after failing the Owners & Directors Test.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel