Cellino explains Hockaday dismissal - and says he'd like him back one day

Leeds owner Massimo Cellino sacked Dave Hockaday on Thursday – and then revealed he would like him back as boss one day.

Hockaday was dismissed after just six games in charge of the Championship side.

The final straw for Cellino came with an embarrassing League Cup defeat by Bradford on Wednesday night.

The Italian had initially decided to sack Hockaday following the 4-1 league defeat at Watford on Saturday, only to perform a dramatic U-turn.

Hockaday, 56, leave with a record of three defeats in four league games.

“I felt sorry for him and had to give him some tranquillity,” Cellino told me.

“After the game on Wednesday, I found him in real trouble, it was getting too much for him.

“It was hell for him. He was under big, big pressure. I had to do something.”

Cellino denied he had made a mistake in appointing the 56-year-old back in June though.

The decision to choose Hockaday to succeed Brian McDermott as Leeds boss was met with widespread derision among the Leeds faithful.

The 56-year-old had only one previous managerial job on his CV – and that had ended in the sack at non-league Forest Green following a run of seven defeats in eight games.

“I think he has good qualities,” Cellino added.

“I found he had skills, loyalty and a desire to work hard.

“He is a very nice man – probably too nice.

“In the future, when I have a stronger team, I would like him to come back to Leeds.

“He is the perfect coach for a club that is strong.

Cellino had a reputation as a ruthless owner who got through lots of coaches during his time as owner of Italian side Cagliari.

Yet he admitted he felt sympathy and possible even guilt because of Hockaday's plight.

“I don’t think it was a fair chance for Hockaday,” the 58-year-old said.

“He needed an environment that was ready to protect him.

“I told him a couple of days ago ‘it’s not your fault’.

“The club doesn’t have a physical trainer or a goalkeeping coach.

“The team isn’t strong enough. The whole culture isn’t right.

“It’s easier to coach Real Madrid than Leeds at the moment.

“Hockaday needed time, but there was a game Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday, and he never had that time.

“He agreed with my decision and it was like a weight had been lifted from him.”

Academy boss Neil Redfearn will now take caretaker charge of the side against Bolton tomorrow and Cellino believes things will start to improve.

“Neil Redfearn knows the boys and he is going to protect that team on Saturday," he said.

“We will have good new players coming.”

Cellino insisted he did not have a replacement lined up.

“If I said I had someone lined up, I would be lying,” he said.

Cellino on Bates meetings, Hockaday, and new signings

You might have thought you'd seen the back of him, but he refuses to go away.

On Thursday, Ken Bates gave an interview to Yorkshire Radio, revealing some recent meetings with new owner Massimo Cellino.

Turns out that what he said was true - and for the reason that a few of you had said.

I spoke to Cellino on Thursday night and he told me: "It's true, we've had meetings. I have to protect Leeds from the case involving Bates and GFH.

"He is suing GFH and the Leeds owner, which is now me.

"I am trying to have a friendly transaction to save the club a lot of money. We are spending too much time, money and energy on legal cases."

These are the facts as far as I'm aware (you might know more than me).

When GFH bought the club, they agreed Bates would continue as president, for three years, and at a salary of approximately £300,000 per year.

GFH subsequently sacked Bates, because he had committed the club to paying for a private jet to fly him from his home in Monaco to Leeds whenever he wanted, for three years.

Bates insisted the travel arrangement was covered by the contract of sale and is taking legal action against Leeds and GFH.

This is likely to be alleviated by some kind of deal, most likely with Bates' Radio Yorkshire being given the broadcast rights to Leeds matches (while they are in the Championship, anyway).

Meanwhile, Cellino said he was "ashamed" of the team's performance against Brighton on Tuesday night, when they lost 2-0 at Elland Road. But he refused to blame manager Dave Hockaday for the defeat.

"I was so pissed off with him during the match, but then afterwards I realised it wasn't his fault, and the fans need to realise this," he said.

"He doesn’t have the players he needs to do what he wants. I would like to blame Hockaday - that would be the easy thing to do and might make me feel better - but the truth is he just doesn’t have the players at the moment."

Cellino hopes to bring in as many as six new players, including Cagliari starlet Adryan.

That deal is proving quite complex though, so could take a while.

Offloading unwanted players is proving difficult, basically because there aren't any clubs coming in for them.

Sam Byram certainly isn't in this unwanted category, yet reports of big offers for him are wide of the mark. I understand that there haven't been any firm bids for the full-back.

Certainly Cellino doesn't feel the transfer strategy of the last few seasons has been that effective.

While he says only about £2 million has been spent on transfer fees in the last three seasons, the wages bill last season was £19 million.

So the low transfer fees don't mask the fact that a lot of the players were ageing and on big salaries. Perhaps not the most prudent strategy.

Cellino hopeful of Adryan deal

Leeds owner Massimo Cellino hopes to pull off a major transfer coup by landing the ’new Kaka’.

Cellino is locked in talks with Brazilian club Flamengo about signing their playmaker Adryan.

Manchester United made moves for the 20-year-old in 2012, while he has also been linked with Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Adryan is currently on loan at Cellino’s old club, Cagliari, after the Italian took him there in January.

Cellino, 58, revealed: “The player wants to come to Elland Road, so that is not the issue here. I know Adryan well and he is a special talent.

“But this is a complicated deal. There is still talking to do with Flamengo and the player’s agent.”

Adryan’s agent is due to meet Cellino at Elland Road today and a deal could be concluded before tonight’s game at home to Brighton.

Adryan has played for Brazil at every age level from the Under-15s to the Under-20s.

So far, he has been dubbed the new Zico, Romario and Kaka in his homeland.

Cellino on new signings, Hockaday, Elland Road and packed lunches

I've interviewed Massimo Cellino for ITV Calendar and you can see some clips here.

It's impossible to capture a 45-minute interview in five one-minute chunks though, so I thought I'd expand.

I interviewed Cellino in the stands at Elland Road on Thursday and he was looking rather like a middle-aged rocker, with beige leather jacket, jeans and trainers, rather than his usual outfit of dark suit and open-necked shirt.

And he was in good form - energetic, open and positive.

Perhaps one reason was he was pleased with how pre-season has gone for his team. Admittedly, it's hard to draw too many conclusions from the matches Leeds played in Italy - beating a very poor FC Gherdina team 16-0 before two Leeds XIs went head to head after their Romanian opposition failed to turn up.

But the training sessions were tough, certainly proving too much for one player.

Jonathan Rossini was forced to pull up during one running drill because he just couldn't cope with the physical demands. Cellino had been keen to sign the Swiss defender, but his body and mind just didn't seem right (he has recently had to contend with some family issues), so it was decided best for Leeds to pull out of the deal to sign him.

There's been a back to basics approach at Leeds this summer. Hockaday is a tracksuit coach who's happiest putting his players through their paces on the training pitch, and Cellino insists he's struck up a good rapport with his new head coach.

"We speak the same language, the language of football," he says. "Dave really understands the game and so do I. In fact sometimes he doesn't even need to say anything for me to understand what he means."

Cellino has demanded humility from his players. He admits he deliberately closed the Thorp Arch canteen before the team left for Italy, because they were taking their privileges for granted .

"They were talking about their apple pie, their jacuzzi, their spinning classes before. You need to earn these things."

So they did have to make their own arrangements for lunch for a couple of days, with many of them bringing in packed lunches. And it was a shock to the system.

The Italian says he was impressed by what he saw during the pre-season tour to Italy though.

"In the hotel, they told me 'your best Cagliari team never behaved as good like these guys.'

"And this is why I was proud. A lot of English players drink and don't behave themselves.

"They worked three times a day and are really nice guys. They are driving really hard.

"A few of those are very beautiful players. I am very impressed. I saw Morrison, Hunt - they didn't play last year, but if you asked me now they are the last ones I would want to sell."

Someone who didn't meet Cellino's standards was goalkeeper Paddy Kenny though, who didn't even make the tour.

Cellino says the player's condition was poor when he turned up for pre-season in Leeds, and that he wasn't willing to meet the standards of the new regime when he was spoken to.

According to the 57-year-old, the goalkeeping position shouldn't be a problem this season.

Cellino says new signing Marco Silvestri is an absolute gem. He expects the 23-year-old to be the best keeper in the Championship and one of the very best in the whole country.

The other new signings are midfielder Tommaso Bianchi, forward Souleymane Doukara - who Cellino says is fast, skilful and will become a fans' favourite - and right back Gaetano Berardi, as well as another keeper, Stuart Taylor.

Cellino also said he was in advanced talks to sign two more defenders - one Scottish and one English, although he wouldn't give names.

Another good source at the club told me a deal is expected to go through for Roma midfielder Federico Viviani, although the player's agent has played down the link.

One player Cellino says won't be joining is former Newcastle striker Nile Ranger.

There clearly were some discussions about the striker, perhaps just between Cellino and Hockaday, who knew the player during his time at Swindon.

Cellino describes him as "the bad boy", which is certainly accurate when you consider his string of arrests and that infamous photo of him posing with a replica gun.

Cellino explains: "The players are like a family and I can't afford to spend too much time on one of them who has problems." So the transfer will not happen, he says.

Another player who won't be at Elland Road next season is, of course, Ross McCormack, the hero of the last campaign.

Cellino says the striker wanted to leave for Cardiff in January and that he stopped him at the 11th hour.

He says the player's agent then agitated for an improved contract and subsequently a move almost as soon as the season had ended.

When McCormack and his agent told Cellino, face to face, that he wanted to leave, the game was pretty much up.

However, Cellino still turned down a £10m offer from Fulham, eventually managing to get £10.75m for him.

"I didn't like that someone else from the Championship came to get our best player," he admits.

Money from the sale will be used to help buy back Elland Road though, which Cellino says will happen in November.

However, he's not so keen on Thorp Arch, which he says is "like an amusement park" and too far from the stadium. The Italian wants a training centre close to Elland Road which he can drive to within five minutes.

He's already actively looking for land for the new training centre.

The other big piece of news, which has been well reported by the excellent Phil Hay of the Yorkshire Evening Post, is that Cellino has reached an agreement with previous owners GFH to wipe out a lot of the debt at the club.

When the Italian purchased Leeds, he agreed to service a debt of £24m built up during GFH’s tenure as majority shareholder.

Cellino argued that GFH had not fully disclosed the state of the financial problems at Elland Road though, and demanded that they compromise on the agreement.

So under the terms of a new agreement, GFH is willing to wipe out half of the debt immediately and take repayment of the remaining money if and when Leeds are promoted to the Premier League.

So far so good perhaps, but the real days of judgement will come on the pitch, starting with Millwall away.

McCormack tells Leeds he wants to leave

Star striker Ross McCormack has rocked Leeds United by telling owner Massimo Cellino that he wants to leave the club.

McCormack, 27, informed Cellino of his decision at a face to face meeting at Elland Road earlier this week. 

The Scotland international was top scorer in the Championship last season with 29 goals. He was also Leeds' player of the season. 

Italian Cellino has always said he is determined to keep McCormack - but only if the player wants to stay. 

And the 57-year-old was shocked and saddened by McCormack's decision. 

Cardiff, Norwich, Fulham and Derby have all made enquiries about the prolific striker and his exit now seems inevitable. 

The news will be another big blow to fans of the Yorkshire giants. Many are angry after little-known Dave Hockaday was appointed head coach of the club last week. 

McCormack has been at Leeds for four seasons and is a huge fan favourite. 

He did turn up for the first day of pre-season training on Thursday and for the club's kit launch this morning, but it is uncertain whether he will join the rest of the players on their training camp in Italy next week.

Reasons for Dave Hockaday appointment

The headline on the Sun story I wrote about Dave Hockaday's imminent appointment as Leeds head coach yesterday read 'Shockaday'.

That seemed appropriate, because there does seem to be a shock-a-day at Leeds at the moment.

North-easterner Hockaday was unveiled at a press conference at Elland Road on Wednesday, but it was notable that Massimo Cellino probably did 95% of the talking.

He even finished off a couple of Hockaday's answers for him.

The Italian said he was unaware of the level of fan opposition to the appointment (85% against in a Yorkshire Evening Post poll; uproar on Twitter), because he doesn't read newspapers or look at the internet.

Probably just as well eh.

As usual, some of the Cellino quotes were gems.

He seemed genuinely bemused by opposition to the appointment, emphasising he wants the club back in the Premier League and everything he does is geared towards that.

"You've had 12 bad years here," he said. "Isn't it time to try something different and to trust me?"

He then looked at the assembled journalists and said: "Don't you want to be covering a Premier League team, to come on this journey with me?"

He then recounted a story about seeing kids with old, tatty shoes queuing with their parents in the club shop to buy season tickets. He said that bestowed a great sense of responsibility on him.

So what were the motivations for the appointment? After all, few of us (certainly not me) had even heard of Dave Hockaday a month ago.

This is what I think and have gleaned.

Now, finance did play a role. The club's financial situation is pretty parlous, as we know.

Brian McDermott was on £750,000 a year and received a pay-off of about £750,000 (payable in instalments) for the two years remaining on his contract when he left by mutual consent at the end of last month.

Hockaday will be on less than a quarter of that amount.

He was also available, so no compensation had to to be paid. That was what put Cellino off the other main contender for the job, Eamonn Dolan, who had three years left on a pretty lucrative deal at Reading.

But it's far too simplistic to say that finances were the only factor.

Cellino wanted a coach, a tracksuit man, and says he's sure of Hockaday's coaching ability.

He also thinks this is a man who will be highly motivated and will live and breath the job, because it's his big (and probably) only chance to make it as a head coach at a stellar club.

Cellino wasn't convinced that some of the other names touted for the job would have been willing to give as much.

Now there are concerns, of course. How will the players respond to Hockaday, for a start?

After all, professional footballers can be a very cynical bunch.

Well Cellino has the answer for that. He'll be pretty much ever-present - at the training ground, observing the session, always watching on.

He says he will be the leader of the club and the team, their focal point, and that the players will have to respect the coach he has chosen.

The search for Leeds United's new head coach

Here's what I know so far... and the bookies might be ahead of me on this one.

After all, William Hill have tonight suspended betting on the identity of the next Leeds boss, while others have Eamonn Dolan as short as 1/10 to take over from Brian McDermott.

Massimo Cellino spoke to the agent of the Reading academy chief on Saturday, although not to the man himself.

Dolan - a close friend of McDermott's - has three years left on his contract at Reading.

So there could be some negotiating to do with the Berkshire club - if indeed Dolan is deemed to be the right man for the Leeds job.

The other name in the frame - certainly at the weekend, anyway - was former Forest Green manager Dave Hockaday, who spoke to Cellino a couple of weeks ago and has remained a strong contender ever since.

Gary McAllister has also been linked with the role, although it's my understanding he isn't being considered.

Cellino did speak to the Leeds legend in London a week ago, having first met him a month earlier.

But these were just informal meetings, by all accounts, in which the pair got on well (who wouldn't get on with Gary McAllister?) But there were no further meetings this weekend, as has been reported, and certainly not a formal interview.

Whatever happens, it seems certain the next Leeds boss will not be the 'big name' many fans crave, but rather a low-profile coach who is happiest wearing a tracksuit and putting the players through their paces on the training ground.

Cellino is currently in Italy and due to return to Elland Road on Thursday.