Stephen McPhail started his professional club football career at Leeds United.
Shamrock Rovers sporting director Stephen McPhail has revealed to Balls.ie that he will try to avoid the mistakes he saw made at Leeds United.
McPhail started his professional club football career at Leeds and was the books of the West Yorkshire outfit from 1995 until 2004.
The 37-year-old former Republic of Ireland midfielder played in the Premier League and in the Champions League during his time at Elland Road.
Now the sporting director of League of Ireland Premier Division side Shamrock Rovers, McPhail has outlined the mistakes he saw made at Leeds which he does not wantto repeat at his current club.
“The huge part for me was coming through the academy system at Leeds, which back then was one of the best in Europe,” McPhail told Balls.ie.
“So when I was asked about this job, it was crucial they gave us time to work on the academy system. The whole restructuring of the club, from the under-8s right up to the first team.
“We will focus on the underage set up as much as the first team. Ultimately at Leeds they ended up focussing on the first-team too much, the budgets were all over the place. We won’t do that. We have to make sure to grow our players.”
Leeds have not featured in the Premier League since 2004, and in recent years they had become also-rans in the Championship.
Under Garry Monk this season, the West Yorkshire outfit are going strong in the Championship and could get promoted to the English top flight for the 2017-18 campaign.
Leeds are fifth in the Championship table at the moment with 69 points from 40 matches.
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