Gray looks to build bridges

Leeds United’s new caretaker-manager Eddie Gray has sought to bring harmony back to the club by offering an olive branch to outcasts Mark Viduka and Danny Mills.

Both players, two of the club’s highest earners, had high-profile disagreements with former boss Peter Reid.

The Australian striker was dropped for the last two matches after being disciplined by Reid for poor timekeeping while Mills was sent to Middlesbrough on loan in August after the manager was left unimpressed by his pre-season form.

However, with Reid being shown the door by his Elland Road employers yesterday, Gray is the new broom which officials hope will sweep all their previous problems under the carpet.

And the former Leeds hero, a veteran of 559 appearances during his spell at the club from 1965 to 1983, has already started attempting to build bridges.

“I think we are going to be okay with Mark,” said Gray.

“I have no problems handling Mark. He is definitely an important member of the first-team squad.

“I don’t know how long the loan is with Danny; I will look at it.”

Gray will return to Leeds’ Thorp Arch training ground today less than eight months after being told he had no future at the club and given a year’s notice.

That was after Reid brought in his own backroom staff and dispensed with the services of both assistant manager Gray and fellow coach Brian Kidd as part of the cost-cutting measures at a club nearly £80m (€116m) in debt.

Gray knows he has his work cut out to arrest a slump which has seen Leeds lose their last five matches and drop to the bottom of the Barclaycard Premiership.

But having spent the vast majority of his football life at the club – he was even player-manager for three seasons from 1982 when the club was in the old Second Division – he is probably the best qualified to pull things together.

“I don’t think it is a lost cause – but it is a difficult task,” he added.

“People only have to look at the league table and the finances of the club to realise that – it was not an easy job for Peter Reid.

“But it is a big club with a big fan base – and there is potential, especially with the crowds the club can attract.

“I will try to instil a lot of confidence in the players and I hope they will respond to that. If you start to win a few games it begins to pick people up.

“If you are in there fighting you always have a chance, and we will look to move up the league.”

The 55-year-old, who also had jobs as reserve coach at Middlesbrough and manager’s roles at Rotherham and Hull before he returned to Elland Road in 1995 to work with the youth teams alongside current Nottingham Forest manager Paul Hart, will be assisted by current first-team coach Kevin Blackwell.

Reid’s departure was no surprise – especially after Saturday’s humiliating 6-1 defeat at Portsmouth – and he was called to a meeting with new chief executive Trevor Birch yesterday when he discovered his fate.

Birch, the former Chelsea executive who has been in the job less than a fortnight, said: “It is, of course, sad to part company with Peter under these circumstances.

“The board appreciates and thanks Peter for his efforts and recognises that he has always worked in the best interests of the club.

“But we have got to move forward and are overwhelmingly focused first and foremost on retaining our Premier League status and ultimately bringing success on and off the field back to this great club.”