Leeds United boss Neil Redfearn: The Premier League is a 'monster'

Football League World

By Sam Rourke

Published Apr 1, 2015

FLW

Leeds United manager Neil Redfearn has admitted that the Premier League is a 'monster' whilst also hailing it the best league in the world.

Redfearn has steered Leeds United clear of the dreaded relegation zone since taking the helm of the club earlier this season, and he has brought an element of stability to the Elland Road outfit.

There has been turmoil off the pitch at the Yorkshire club, with Italian owner Massimo Cellino being disqualified from owning the club, due to breaching Football League regulations.

The key to Redfearn's success this season has been how he has utilised the club's younger players, such as Lewis Cook, Alex Mowatt, Sam Byram and Charlie Taylor.

The aforementioned trio have almost become the first names on the team sheet this season, with Redfearn offering them a chance to play first-team football at such a young age.

Speaking to the Guardian, Leeds United boss Neil Redfearn said: “If you look back to probably the greatest Leeds side ever under Don Revie, when he started and the club were in the Second Division without much money, they brought in Madeley and Reaney and Bremner, they had this group of experienced pros with them, but he basically took a big chance,”

“In some respects we were in such a position where we had to change things. I knew that as the caretaker when I came in and I remember the first game, Bolton at home, when I put in Cook and Mowatt and everybody went: ‘What’s happening? You can’t do anything with kids.’

“There is a whole load of people who have put years and years of work into this academy and all of a sudden you’re starting to see the fruits of it in the first team. For the sake of English football, you can’t look past the academies.

“I think the Premier League is the best league in the world, but I think it’s a monster. I think it’s run away with everything; the Football League has got no teeth, the FA has got no teeth. Our international sides are now losing their identity, wrongly. There’s got to be some way where our FA gets our identity back and it’s got to be through the youth.”

The Yorkshire club currently sit in 13th place in the Sky Bet Championship table, having accumulated 52 points from 39 league games thus far this season.