Recent poor results have piled pressure on Leeds' manager and today his charges face a vital game against Colchester United, writes Michael Walker

THE MORNING was bright, crisp and dry, the training session was still in full flow and the sounds were of exuberant and spirited. It was a good morning to be a professional footballer, you thought.

Steve Staunton may have disagreed. It looked like he did, stood on the touchline, eyes narrowed in concerned concentration, his lips sucked into his face in that way of his that suggests he's thinking: this wouldn't have done at Liverpool, you know.

This was a fortnight ago, the venue Thorp Arch, out in the north Yorkshire countryside. It is Leeds United's training base. Leeds used to own it. Now they rent it apparently, but have designs on bringing it back under club ownership when the time is right.

Given that a fortnight ago Leeds announced operating profits of around €5 million and they looked fair set for promotion, that could feasibly have happened next season. This was a morning that made you think manager Gary McAllister - whom Staunton assists - might not just be talking for the sake of it when he said that Leeds had "bottomed out" after all those years of falling and falling. And not faintly.

But since then Leeds have had another bump, then another one. Only those in the third division might know what is going on in the third division these days but Leeds have the feel of a bruised club just now.

It started two days after that training session observed by Staunton (who was awarded his Uefa A Licence coaching badge in September if you're interested). Leeds went to non-League Histon in the FA Cup second round and lost 1-0. Very few people had ever heard of Histon. McAllister was jokily struggling beforehand even with the concept of the second round. "November!" he laughed. But that joke isn't funny anymore.

Six days later and it was a trip to Birkenhead to meet Tranmere Rovers. Leeds lost that one, too, 2-1. Twitchiness has replaced calm appraisal since, there are early calls for McAllister's head and today at Elland Road the collective Leeds memory will experience a shiver when Colchester United (who sprung a famous FA Cup upset on mighty Leeds in 1971) appear out of the past and into their present again. Colchester bleedin' United.

This is not the comfort blanket Leeds need.

Colchester must be beaten. If not, if the unthinkable happens and Colchester win, then it will be four defeats in a row for Leeds (they lost at Northampton Town three days before that pre-Histon training session).

After Colchester it is MK Dons - Wimbledon - away next Saturday and then Leicester City at Elland Road on St Stephen's Day. At the minute MK Dons are third in the division, while Leicester are first. Leeds are seventh and even McAllister must see it can get worse.

Others can see that. You can tell by the numbers coming out publicly to support McAllister. He was appointed only at the end of January to replace the departing and largely detested Dennis Wise. Simply not being Wise gave McAllister popularity, but there was also the fact that he was part of a midfield with Strachan, Speed and Batty that won Leeds' last league title in 1992.

McAllister also talks like a football man. There is a Glaswegian gravitas to his delivery and he wants the game played the way he played it. Pass and move. He and Staunton both have Liverpool thoughts.

But this, as McAllister acknowledges, is the third division. League One, they call it, but it's the third division.

Pass and move only gets you so far and so far Leeds have won 10 of their first 19 games. Last season, under Wise, Leeds won 15 of their first 19. The problems, some say, came in October when Wise's assistant Gus Poyet left for Tottenham and Juande Ramos, but Leeds' results downturn came in January when Wise was on his way to more unpopularity at Newcastle.

Even then, as most Leeds fans will tell you - and chairman-owner Ken Bates in particular - the League-imposed 15-point deduction for entering administration the previous season was the most important factor why Leeds were not promoted automatically. The statistics prove that, but rules are rules.

The deduction meant Leeds entered the play-offs and the comparative smoothness of their football meant that there was a quickness of anticipation in the collective Leeds step again.

But Wembley saw them beaten by Doncaster Rovers. Doncaster Rovers. Yorkshire upon Yorkshire.

So they set off again in the third division but, as Colchester approach, McAllister has had support from inside the dressingroom and outside it. Yesterday he mentioned the need for Leeds to be prepared "to win ugly". He mentioned that Leeds have been working on "deficiencies" this week.

"You have to stand toe to toe with your opponents," he said. "It's not a tactical minefield here. We're asking them to get the ball down and pass it, but there are other options and sometimes you have to move it quicker."

Is this Route One we're talking? McAllister also referred to the "doom and gloom" around Elland Road again. He's right, but then there is a crisis everywhere in football these days.

At Liverpool they boo even when the team is top of the league. At Chelsea there is sudden exasperation over Felipe Scolari. At Manchester United there is fresh concern about Wayne Rooney's temperament and how Alex Ferguson gets Carlos Tevez into the same formation as Rooney, Ronaldo and the smoker Berbatov. At Arsenal the angst is ongoing.

This is the top four - money machines, trophy hoarders - and yet they whinge. What Leeds United would give for those deficiencies.

GUS POYETspoke about Juande Ramos this week without referring to his former Tottenham Spaniard as the luckiest man in football. Despite being kicked out by Spurs, Ramos had been manoeuvred into the post of manager of Real Madrid.

That's some journey.

Poyet said he expected Ramos to be working first on Madrid's obvious flaw: they can't defend. And they go to Barcelona tonight. At least part of Juande must have thought "Gee, gracias" when he saw the fixture list.

It was a good reminder that not only English football is daft to the core. Spain has its high spots - the Real-Seville match last Sunday night was a flawed gem of entertainment - but La Liga is as capable of baffling observers as anywhere else. Imagine if Juande organises a win.

ROSELAWN CEMETERYin the hills above east Belfast witnessed a large gathering of amateur footballers and firemen on Tuesday morning. Amid the tears there was a smattering of laughter, which is probably how Warren Ferguson would have wanted it. Warren (44) died about 50 years too early, from Motor Neurone Disease.

Warren was all the things people said he was - good, honest, decent, a pleasure to be with, an honour to know. To play in the same team as him was to see - always - someone trying harder than you, playing better than you. It was only amateur league football in Belfast but it mattered more than we knew at the time. You can feel the local game withering now and it is sad.

Then there would be pints on the Ormeau and it was brilliant. Warren Ferguson was a brilliant lad who will be missed.