Simon Grayson has confirmed that he had two opportunities to return to Leeds United.
Ex-Leeds United manager Simon Grayson has exclusively told the LS11 Podcast that he did have the chance to return to Leeds in 2014 – and wanted to come back earlier this year.
Grayson grew up supporting the Whites and started his career with Leeds, making just two appearances before moving on to Leicester City in 1992.
When Grayson turned his hand to management, he impressed in charge of Blackpool, and it was a dream come true for the Ripon-born boss when Leeds moved to appoint him in 2008.
Grayson took Leeds back to the Championship and guided the club to a shock win over Manchester United at Old Trafford, but was sacked in February 2012 despite winning almost 50% of his games in charge.
Since then, Grayson struggled with Huddersfield after guiding them to the Championship and enjoyed a strong four-year spell with Preston North End in which he again won promotion from League One and established them as a Championship club again.
A gamble in joining Sunderland last summer didn’t pay off and he was sacked in October last year, and his short spell with Bradford City earlier this year didn’t reap many rewards for the now out-of-work boss.
Ahead of the new Championship season, Grayson has spoken to the LS11 Podcast about Leeds, and admitted that he spoke to Massimo Cellino about replacing David Hockaday as Leeds boss in 2014, but rejected the opportunity after discussions with the Italian.
Grayson added that he was contacted about becoming Leeds manager again earlier this year after Thomas Christiansen’s exit, but the Whites chose to appoint Paul Heckingbottom instead – despite Grayson’s desire to make the move.
“Yes,” said Grayson. “I was at Preston, and I got approached…I think it might have been after Hockaday left, and obviously my heart wanted to come back, my head was in the balance. I met Cellino at the time, and after meeting him I just decided that ‘this isn’t the right thing for me to do’. It’s sort of one of them scenarios where I thought ‘yeah, course I would want to go back’, I felt – and it’s the old cliché – that I had unfinished business, I wanted to come back and try and fulfil what I’d set out to do in the first place by trying to get back to the Premier League, but after meeting him I just felt that wasn’t the right thing to do, it was wrong at the stage of time. I was at Preston, I was working with good people, I was in a secure job, and decided that it wasn’t the right thing to do.”
“When Thomas Christiansen left, I had a phone call [saying] ‘would I be interested about coming back’, but then they decided to go down a different avenue with Paul Heckingbottom. One was in my hands that I turned down, the second time wasn’t my decision, because I was out of work and certainly would’ve come back last time,” he added.
Watch the full exclusive interview with Grayson on the LS11 Podcast Facebook page here.
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