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In Italy they call him ‘Il mangia allentori’ – the manager eater – because he went through 36 coaches in his 22 years at Cagliari.

At Leeds, his appetite appears undiminished and he is on to his fifth head coach in Uwe Rosler in 12 months.

But Massimo Cellino insists this persona is not the real him, claiming he does not like sacking managers.

The colourful Leeds chairman and owner says he has always supported every one of his coaches and current Juventus boss Massimiliano Allegri lasted two years under him at Cagliari.

He says he only axes coaches if they are failing and claims Cagliari were once relegated because he wrongly stood by a manager.

“How can you like sacking people, especially coaches?” said Cellino, as he sits in his impressive refurbished office at Elland Road, which boasts a glass bowl full of chocolate bars, rather than the goldfish of the Peter Ridsdale era.

(Image: Bryn Lennon)

“It’s very hard when you have to tell someone you like they are fired.

“My dream is to keep a coach 20 years.

“I had some very good coaches at Cagliari. They were not a big team so they left me to go to bigger clubs. Sometimes you have coaches you are not very good so you have to fire them because you need someone better.

“Once at Cagliari, I tried to keep a coach against the wishes of the players and the fans because he was a top man from my point of view and I was relegated because I didn’t fire him.

“Sometimes, we don’t fire a coach because our egos don’t let us admit we hired the wrong one.”

So after Brian McDermott, Dave Hockaday, Darko Milanic and Neil Redfearn, is Rosler the right one?

“I hope so!” smiles Cellino, who appointed the former Brentford, Wigan and Molde boss after returning from his Football League ban last month.

(Image: Matthew Lewis)

He has been busy overhauling the club, as well as his office, after the Football League banned him from owning or running Leeds because of his conviction in Italy for tax evasion.

He has brought Adam Pearson back to Leeds as executive director and he may need to rely heavily on him because he has more outstanding tax cases in Italy.

The guitar-playing Cellino vehemently denies any wronging and feels he has finally made the right choice at Elland Road in Rosler.

“I wanted someone who is a good, experienced coach in the Championship,” he said. “Uwe is German, but he knows England and how to get foreign players used to playing here.

“He’s a very well-organised guy. He suits my mentality because I like to have control of everything.”

This extends to controlling transfer policy and Cellino insists he protects his coaches by taking this pressure away from them.

(Image: Action Images)

“A coach with good potential can realise his potential if the club is strong to look after him,” he said. “If you leave him too much alone, it can kill him.

“Why does he have to buy? He should propose [deals to the owner]. That is the big mistake they make in England.

"We have to work together, we share the responsibility. If we choose a player together and we make a mistake, it is our mistake, not his.”

Cellino, 58, is adamant his way works and highlighted Rosler’s mistakes in the transfer market last summer at Wigan, when he wasted a combined £5million on French striker Andy Delort and Spanish forward Oriol Riera.

“Delort - I was signing him,” he said. “But after 65 seconds [of negotiations] I got up from my chair and walked away because they were looking just for the big deal. He came here just to take the money.

"He [Rosler] made a mistake with the Spanish one, too. If Uwe had been my coach, I would have said, ‘Be careful, we will take a one-year loan with a right to buy because that first year is very important. Otherwise we do not buy him’.

“That’s the experience that you need to cover your coaches and I will give Uwe my full sport."

MORE: Cellino wants Leeds in the CHAMPIONS League not just the Premier League