His heart’s in the right place: Ex-Leeds starlet on embattled Cellino

‘It’s a nightmare’: Cellino considering his future at Leeds

Tonge, 32, was bombed out at Elland Road at the end of last season and after a spell looking for a club, including an unsuccessful trial at Bolton Wanderers, the former Sheffield United man signed a three-month contract with League 2 Stevenage this month.

The midfielder says Cellino’s “heart is in the right place” but with the Italian already on to his sixth head coach in his 19-month spell at Elland Road, Tonge says he must give Steve Evans a chance - if he is allowed to continue his reign at Leeds if a Football League ban is quashed.

Tonge said: “You just don’t know what’s going to happen next with Cellino. I think his heart is in the right place and he wants to win and he wants to do well.

“Anybody who puts their own money into a club and has got the right to make a decision about who he wants to manager. I think looking at it from the outside the only way they will win it [the Championship title] is if they get a manager and stick with them, and really gives them a good crack at it.

“Even if they decide at the start of a season that they are going to be manager for the whole season. Obviously it gets to a point now where you have to change the manager because it’s going that badly then you have to do it.

“But I think that the amount of managers that have gone through the place, even last season when I was there, it’s difficult for the lads.”

Tonge enjoyed two years at Leeds, making 46 appearances for the club but found the changes in management destabilising.