New Preston North End coach Steve Thompson has come out for the first time and openly spoke about his time as assistant manager to Neil Redfearn at Leeds United.
Thompson joined Leeds United from Huddersfield Town in late 2014 as assistant manager. He worked well with then manager Neil Redfearn and took the club from near relegation to mid table. The club went on an unbeaten run all the way through January and into Febuary, and only lost 3 games up to his suspension in March 2015. Leeds beat the likes of promotion hunting Middlesborough, Ipswich and Bournemouth.
Thompson told The Lancashire Evening Post, ‘Neil Redfearn had been give the job at Leeds and it was a no brainer to join him. They were second bottom when I joined and the job was the save them from relegation’.
‘It was complex there, with something of a divided dressing room with players who just weren’t good enough. You had foreign lads smoking before training which was something I just wasn’t used to’.
‘But we went on a fantastic run and ended comfortably mid table’
‘I remember Redders saying to me, ‘The better we do here the worse it will be for us, I thought that was strange at the time, but he was right’
‘One Thursday morning a letter was put on my desk informing me I had been suspended. There was no explanation and it was such a frustrating time for me. The LMA (League managers association) told me to keep my own counsel and that was hard when I saw my name pop up on Sky Sports News as breaking news.’
‘There was allegations of me falling out with Football Director Nicola Salerno, but I did not fall out with anyone’.
‘The most frustrating thing was the use of the word suspended. That implied I had done something wrong which could not be further from the truth’.
‘I think it was done to try and undermine Redders, and I really felt for him’.
‘They lost 5 games on the bounce and the dressing room was split. Later I had offers to go back but I could never do that’.
