Extravagance and 'insensitivity' bring O'Leary's downfall

Manager departs in wake of club's traumatic times and after failing to reap reward of £96m investment in players

How quickly a breath of fresh air can give way to the whiff of a welcome outstayed. Six months after his Leeds United side started 2002 by returning to the Premiership summit, and little more than a year after they played for a place in the Champions' League final, David O'Leary's increasingly questionable man-management skills, tactical nous and public-relations sense cost him his job as manager yesterday.

The end of the trial of Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer last December presented an opportunity for O'Leary to draw a line under the whole tawdry episode. For a time he seemed to have done precisely that, three consecutive wins leaving Leeds top with 17 games remaining. The Uefa Cup and FA Cup held out the prospect of further honours for an expensively assembled side.

It was then that O'Leary's standing, both with members of his squad and among sections of Leeds' support, began to be critically undermined. No sooner had he become embroiled in heated exchanges with Cardiff City owner Sam Hammam, following Leeds' FA Cup calamity against the Second Division side, than his book, an ill-judged, self-serving tome with the highly insensitive title of Leeds United On Trial, was published.

O'Leary claimed he was unaware of the title. He also protested that the publication date and the extracts printed in a tabloid newspaper – in which he attacked Woodgate and the newly-acquitted Bowyer for "failing to exercise control" – were beyond his control. Against a backdrop of criticism that he had cashed in on the misfortune of the Asian student injured in the incident, Leeds' decline dragged on into another trophy-free spring at Elland Road.

Peter Lorimer, the former Leeds player who now watches their games from the radio-commentary gantry, suggested yesterday that O'Leary "lost the dressing-room" when his book came out. Whatever the truth of that assertion, Leeds eventually finished fifth, way behind an Arsenal side they had beaten away early in the season.

True, they qualified for Europe for the fifth season running, something the club had not achieved since the Don Revie era three decades earlier. And they gained 66 points, only three fewer than when they finished third and qualified for the Champions' League in 1999-2000, O'Leary's first full season after succeeding George Graham.

But the expectations surrounding Leeds had changed dramatically. O'Leary raised them by venturing unprecedented sums in the transfer market, splashing close to £100m and recouping scarcely a third of that amount in his attempt to challenge the ascendancy of Manchester United. Yet they finished in exactly the position Graham had left them.

O'Leary, who was an untried 40-year-old when he took over, had been assistant to the former Arsenal manager. Yet his approach to management, and his initial popularity among Leeds' followers, was based on being Graham's antithesis. He promoted teenagers such as Woodgate, Alan Smith and Stephen McPhail, and switched to an exhilarating attacking style.

Despite losing his top scorer Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, and notwithstanding his own, tediously restated "naivety", Leeds went on to take third place in the Premiership the following year. O'Leary was moved to claim that the once-reviled club had become the second favourite side of many opposing supporters.

Then, however, came the events of January 2000. An alcohol-fuelled Woodgate, Bowyer and friends were involved in a fracas with Asian youths in the streets of Leeds city centre.

Four months later came the horrific killing of two Leeds supporters in Istanbul before the Uefa Cup semi-final against Galatasaray. But O'Leary, acting with great dignity, revived his team's spirits and guided them into the Champions' League.

While the manager grappled with injuries, they first progressed from a group containing Milan and Barcelona, then from one which included Real Madrid and Lazio. With the £18m Rio Ferdinand becoming eligible, and Brian Kidd joining O'Leary's coaching team, Leeds then despatched Deportivo La Coruña before falling to Valencia in the semi-finals.

They started last season as one of the title favourites, a status they justified by remaining unbeaten in the first 11 games, which included trips to Highbury, Anfield and Old Trafford. But the Woodgate-Bowyer case would not go away, the trial having ended prematurely when a newspaper was in contempt of court as the jury considered its verdict.

"One boozy night has brought this club down," O'Leary complained at the crest of last season's slump. Woodgate, having been convicted for affray in the retrial, promptly sustained a broken jaw on another, albeit less sinister, "boozy night". Moreover, indiscipline was rampant on the pitch, with Smith and Danny Mills the worst culprits.

Failure to return to the Champions' League, in which a place had looked a formality, especially after the £11m signing of Robbie Fowler, led many to question O'Leary's ability to get the best from a hugely-talented squad.

Ridsdale, who had encouraged the impression that Leeds were prepared to endlessly bankroll his ambitions, began warning of the need for him to make a £15m profit on his close-season transfer dealings.

It was perhaps revealing that players seemed to be queuing up to leave Elland Road. Bowyer, the fans' favourite, looked determined to be first out until Leeds' possible willingness to sell Ferdinand to their bitterest rivals reared its head.

O'Leary, whose legacy will be a squad bristling with exciting and eminently saleable young players rather than the trophies which his reign looked likely to deliver, has now beaten them all to it.