Liam Cooper has denied the claims made by some newspapers that the players are revolting, so is everything really OK behind the scenes?
Last week the Daily Mail was claiming that Steve Evans was on the way out of Elland Road in the wake of the second half collapse against Huddersfield. The story was that some senior players were said to have told Massimo Cellino what they thought about Evans’ style of management, and that none of it was complimentary.
But now The Yorkshire Post is reporting that Liam Cooper has said that this is just paper talk. "He’s just an honest manager and he’s a good motivator. He gets the boys up for the game, he’s honest with us and he keeps us going all the time and we just buy into that.”
"Of course I understand the level of interest in the club - it’s a massive club and obviously the media are interested in everything. But we just concentrate on what we’ve got to do on the pitch, we turn a blind eye to what’s going on off the pitch. We try to do our best for the club, the supporters and the management staff.”
So where did the stories of a players mutiny come from? In the past there have been rumours of a rift in the dressing room between the British players and Cellino’s overseas recruits, and I have heard that one foreign player in particular is a bit of a disruptive influence.
So Cooper would be among those who would be eager to publicly back Evans, in the hope that Cellino isn’t going to ditch the current head coach at the end of the season. We can hope that all the players share his opinion of Evans and that everyone is happy behind the scenes, but there may still be some truth in the claims that other players have been talking to Cellino behind his back.