McDermott excited by facing Boro and not talk of takeover at Leeds

The Elland Road faithful have spent much of the past few days digesting the news that Leeds legend Lucas Radebe is involved with a consortium bidding to get involved with the club.

An initial bid of £7m with, what sources close to the group claim to be, “additional scheduled payments” in return for a majority stake was firmly rejected by owners, GFH Capital, last weekend.

Fans are now waiting to see if the consortium, in the main made up of local businessmen, will try to increase their efforts to get involved over the coming days.

For McDermott, however, the only thing that has mattered this week has been the forthcoming game with Boro.

Asked about the talk of takeovers and investment, the Leeds manager replied: “Things like that don’t bother me, not at all. Well, what goes off on the pitch bothers me. Of course it does.

“But what excites me is what happens on a Saturday afternoon. It excites me coming into work every day.

“I am not affected by that and the only thing that matters is training the boys, working with them and preparing for the next game. That (takeover talk) hasn’t come on to my horizon.”

The international break came at an inopportune time for Leeds, who beat Charlton Athletic 4-2 in their last outing. That win at The Valley took United to within a point of the play-offs and such is the feel-good factor at the moment that a bumper crowd is expected tomorrow.

McDermott added: “It (the match) has been a long time coming. It feels like a long time since we last played at home. There is an expectancy about the crowd and we are trying to get to 30,000, which would be fabulous.

“The crowd have been super since I arrived, even when it hasn’t been going our way. If I could play 46 games at Elland Road, I would. Give me that any time. Sometimes we are not going to play well but the fans can live with that as long as they see the right reaction.

“That is the message I have sent out from day one.”