‘People told me I shouldn’t go back, but why would you leave Leeds?’

It was a little before 10am yesterday and Brian McDermott had just walked into the dressing room at Leeds United’s Thorp Arch training ground.

It was the first time he had seen his United players since the crazy weekend goings-on at Elland Road that had left the football world agog and the Yorkshire club’s supporters in a state of bewilderment.

The players were delighted to see their manager back in situ. But, footballers being footballers, there was still time for a bit of banter before getting down to the serious business of preparing for next weekend’s trip to Yeovil Town.

“The players were great,” said McDermott after answering an SOS call from Gulf Finance House, the club’s owners, to return to the club.

“I got a lot of texts over the weekend. Same with the staff. They were pleased to see me. Mind, that is probably because I always pay for the meal at Christmas.”

McDermott could afford to smile yesterday. He was back where he wanted to be – at the helm of Leeds United.

On Friday night, however, there was precious little for the 52-year-old to smile about. A telephone call from a solicitor he had never previously met had, it seemed, brought an abrupt end to his reign as manager.

Chris Farnell, the lawyer in question, was speaking on behalf of Massimo Cellino, the Italian who for several days had been on the verge of purchasing a 
75 per cent stake in the Elland Road club.

McDermott insisted yesterday that he was not angry at the news. Instead, he was calm and it was his agent, Pat Dolan, who seemed the most shocked.

“Pat went silent for two minutes,” laughed the Leeds manager. “I thought he’d crashed the car.”

The timing and manner of McDermott’s ‘sacking’ last Friday may have shocked both Dolan and the club’s fans, but, to those familiar with the behind-the-scenes manoeuvering that went on in LS11 last month, the writing had been on the wall.

It had been an open secret, since a request for Gianluca Festa to sit in the dugout during last Tuesday’s Championship fixture against Ipswich Town was rejected, that Cellino saw the former Middlesbrough defender as the club’s next manager.

There had also been whispers for at least a fortnight that the owners were unhappy with results. At least one senior figure at GFH, the Bahraini bank that bought Leeds in December, 2012, is believed to have wanted McDermott out after the debacle that was last month’s 6-0 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday.

However, if the decision to dispense with McDermott might not have been exactly a shock of seismic proportions, the dramatic U-turn that saw the affable one-time Reading manager back at Thorp Arch really was stunning. Which is why the media room at Leeds’s training HQ was packed to the rafters yesterday.

“It would have been very, very easy for me to walk away and that would have been the advice of an awful lot of people,” the Leeds manager said.

“I spoke to a lot of people in the game, a lot of really important people, and they said, ‘You shouldn’t go back’.

“But in my mind there was no way I was ever going to be walking away from this job. Why would you walk away from being Leeds United manager? It just doesn’t make any sense.

“Look at the support that the team got on Saturday. We have got what hardly any club has got – a machine behind us.

“Those fans believe passionately. They are different. At a lot of clubs, not too many would have turned up on Saturday. But 31,000 turned up, screaming the roof down. At 1-0 down they were still getting behind the players. There is a real siege mentality here.”

United’s 5-1 victory over Huddersfield was an incredible show of support for McDermott.

Not only was the 52-year-old’s name sung loudly throughout the afternoon but Festa, still considered to be Cellino’s preferred choice as manager despite weekend denials to the contrary, was also left in no doubt as to the Gelderd End’s feelings about his suitability.

Had Cellino’s original plan for Saturday gone ahead, Festa would have been in charge of a team that would have looked very different to the XI sent out by Nigel Gibbs, United’s assistant manager.

“Neil (Redfearn, first-team coach) had rung me (on Friday night) to say he was going to the ground to meet up with Gianluca Festa,” revealed McDermott. “The team was changed from the one I picked. Neil came out and told me that.”

Friday’s dramatic turn of events not only left United in meltdown, it also ended any hopes of fine-tuning the squad in the final hours of the transfer window.

Luke Varney had been expected to clinch a transfer to Blackburn Rovers, who had offered the one-time Blackpool man a two-and-a-half year deal. Paul Green was another tipped for the exit door with Ipswich Town interested but, in the end, the only ‘departure’ on the football side of the club was McDermott.

As for whether any of those deals can be revived when the loan market opens next week, the Leeds chief said: “Possibly. I have to say I feel a bit sorry for three players here who were going to go out and play.”

He added: “Luke is still a Leeds United player and it is important to move on, whether you make mistakes or not. We all make mistakes.

“He’s a good man and he is trying to do what is best for him and his family, like we are all trying to do. I am sure that Leeds fans, if he puts on that shirt again, will give him respect and it’s the right thing because he’s got a Leeds jersey on. We are all in this together.”