He has a word for one startled apprentice and a playful punch for another, a hearty “good morning” to the girls in the laundry-room. I want to win things, not just hear people saying ‘They’re a great team to watch.’”It is Thursday morning, and O’Leary had swept with almost presidential authority through Leeds United’s isolated training complex opposite Wealstun Prison, a few miles south east of the family home at Harrogate he shares with his wife Joy and their two teenage children. O’Leary counters: “I don’t want to concede goals, I don’t want to be into sexy football, say, like Kevin Keegan. He listened to my point, but said ‘No, we’re going to play my way.’”The world is full of those with such cavalier philosophies, but not too many at the serious end at the Premiership. I just don’t believe in playing one up and sitting on the edge of the box It invites pressure from the opposition.

I’m not saying we should be gung-ho and get battered at the other end, but I believe you should go forward and try to play in their last third as much as possible. O’Leary recalls: “When we went to Maritimo, George played 4-5- 1; I told him privately that I didn’t agree. I want to play a certain way, which is 3-4-3 in many ways, attacking-wise taking a man from the back and getting an extra man up the field, while George was very much 4-4-2 or 4-5-1.”Not that the master was unaware of his pupil’s liberal leanings after the central defender rejoined his former Highbury guv’nor at Elland Road in 1996. I’ve been told I’m young and naive, but I’m going to play the way I want to play and if I get the sack because of it, so be it,” he insists “I had a great input with George, but he was the boss I didn’t bring in the players I didn’t pick the team There were a lot of things I didn’t agree with. O’Leary has already established that fact by his players’ exhilarating performances in his first two months Now he confirms it by word “I always knew the way I wanted to do things.

So much for those who had assumed that Graham had left behind nothing more than a genial clone when he answered Alan Sugar’s distress flare from Pride Hurt Lane.
New manager; new broom. “Y’see, I want adventurous play – but with a purpose.”

On the night, Leeds lost 1-0 and were eventually eliminated; yet, honour at least was intact, and a heroic performance was vindication of the acting manager’s intrepid approach. He said ‘You’re going to do 4-5-1?’ I said ‘No George, I’m going to do 4-4-2.’ He didn’t say anything, he just went quiet, which is typical George, but I got the impression that he thought I’d lost my marbles.” O’Leary chuckles at the recollection, but then paraphrased his approach to man- agement. “George had just joined Tottenham and the previous day he’d seen them win at Derby. I congratulated him, but he was more interested in how I was going to play in Rome. It was a Sunday evening, two days before Leeds faced Roma at the Olympic Stadium in the second round of the Uefa Cup, when David O’Leary received a call from his mentor.