Leeds United are left crossing their fingers when long-term rethink is needed - Stuart Rayner

But whether or not they live to fight for a third top-flight season, 2022-23 has highlighted problems which need urgent thought now.

On the one hand, fans might be alarmed to see pictures of chairman Andrea Radrizzani trying to save an already-relegated Italian club – Sampdoria – from going bust rather than concentrating on the one he owns already. On the other, it could point to a badly-needed reset.

Leeds will again finish a season relying on favours to stay in the Premier League. The drop-offs in revenue and exposure in the Championship are seismic, even if lessons have been learnt all round from when their bubble last burst in 2004.

This was not in the brochure.

"If we’re lucky, we are close to 10th," was Radrizzani’s August expectation. "If we aren’t lucky, 15th. I don’t want any more heart-attack risk. We’ll avoid a situation similar to last season. It’s impossible.”

If they are lucky, they will be 17th. If not, 19th. Defibrillators will be on standby. Interim manager Sam Allardyce and his players were gloomy – if realistic – after Sunday's 3-1 defeat at West Ham United.

It is a bad time for a vacuum at the top. Director of football Victor Orta was the first sacked in the fall-out and it is very hard to see Allardyce staying if Leeds are relegated, difficult enough if not.

Radrizzani's Sampdoria preoccupation hints at ending a limbo whereby he is the majority shareholder but with a 44 per cent stake and option to add, San Francisco 49ers Enterprises the powerbrokers.

It has led to clunky decision-making. The lowlight was sending Jack Harrison to Leicester on deadline day to discuss a transfer whilst waiting for the American half of the board to get out of bed and decide if they would sanction it. They did not.

If Allardyce fails to save Leeds, they must still use him. An expert debrief from the 68-year-old is essential without a director of football.

"I won't tell you now – it's private," he said when asked his view in Sunday's post-match press conference.

"It doesn't take long to work it out when I've done 1,155 games, does it? I've sorted a few clubs out so the experience is all there. At the end of the season we'll have that discussion."

There had been lots of spoilers.

When asked Leeds’s biggest defensive problem, he replied: "The strength in depth of the squad more than anything."

He said of his substitutes: "I don't think any made a difference."

When Leeds were well on top in the first 20 minutes they only scored once "and that was off a throw-in. We got lots of possession, lots of flow going forward, lots of time in the opposition's final third. It wasn't just the failure of the final ball but also our incapability for shots on target."

More damning was a struggling Rodrigo playing all 90 minutes because with fellow striker Patrick Bamford injured "who could replace him?" Centre-forward Georginio Rutter, at £35m the most expensive player Leeds have ever bought, was an unused substitute.

"I have seen him play twice," Allardyce said on Friday. "It’s a next-season scenario for him.”

The lack of depth stems from Marcelo Bielsa's insistence on a small squad. With two windows to bulk up, they have tried.

But Orta was better at buying future than ready-made players. With Joe Gelhardt, Cody Drameh, Charlie Cresswell, Jamie Shackleton, Lewis Bate and Ian Poveda on loan learning their trades, Leeds fell into the same trap as Southampton – too busy looking ahead to see where they put their feet. No relegation-threatened team can blow club records on "next-season scenarios".

Bielsa's brilliant 2020-21 team has not been evolved enough. At West Ham Leeds were still relying on Luke Ayling, a right-back they signed Rasmus Kristensen to replace, Adam Forshaw, not properly fit for four years, and Bamford. Stuart Dallas’s broken leg was so costly.

“In years gone past, teams feared us when it comes to running, our fitness and stuff and I just don’t feel like it’s there this season,” said Ayling, contradicting the regular messages about running stats and intensity former coach Jesse Marsch put out.

Marsch's appointment was another folly, identified as a natural fit to replace Bielsa because he played with the same intensity, ignoring he used it totally differently, reshaping the squad to fit his vision, then abandoning it after 12 months. The next manager must be better picked.

As the squad decays, so does Elland Road. Revamping it is part of the 49ers' plan but makes far less sense without Premier League money and gates. Bielsa drove improvements to the training ground but the biggest issue is a lack of space. Plans for an Eithad Campus-style set-up were scrapped for bigger priorities.

Leeds need a serious rethink.

"Let's hope we have that discussion in the Premier League. Fingers crossed," said Allardyce.

It has come to this: crossing fingers.