Appropriately, the signs outside Elland Road yesterday were for the "January sales". Inside the club shop a middle-aged lady was complaining to the staff but getting nowhere. She had given her son a Leeds shirt for Christmas, with Woodgate printed on the back. No refund was possible, not even a Raul Bravo shirt - the midfielder signed on loan from Real Madrid for the rest of the season. She slammed the door as she left.

However galling the experiences of the past six months since he became manager, and the past week in particular, at least Terry Venables' popularity has not plummeted to the point where he now needs his own minder.

Peter Ridsdale, though, entered the banqueting suite of Elland Road like an American politician, flanked by the sort of slack-jawed heavy usually seen on the door of a nightclub.

At least the Leeds chairman was sufficiently aware of the disaffection of the club's fans to convene a specially arranged press conference, even if it succeeded only in exposing him as a businessman out of his depth while highlighting the rift that has developed with his manager.

Over the next hour Venables, despite the provocation from Ridsdale, the half-truths and disingenuous flannel, indicated he would not relinquish his position, or not yet anyway. "Most of the things that have to be said between us are better left in private," he said. "We're grown-ups, professional people, and we have to get on with it, whatever our differences are."

As chairman and chief executive Ridsdale may have the two most powerful jobs at Elland Road but it was unfair, he argued, to blame him for the sales of Rio Ferdinand, Robbie Keane, Olivier Dacourt, Lee Bowyer, Robbie Fowler and now Jonathan Woodgate. He had budgeted for a Champions League club, he said, only to be let down by the team's performances.

"You could argue that I did my bit and others didn't." By this he presumably meant David O'Leary, Venables's predecessor. Leeds's failure to reach Europe's top competition over the past two seasons had cost them £30 million, said Ridsdale. "If the supporters make it clear they do not want me here, maybe I will decide to give it up and spend some more time with my family. But, if the fans believe a different chairman would have turned down a £9 million bid for Woodgate, they should think again."

Listening to this impassioned but flawed argument reminded some of a throwaway comment from Sir Alex Ferguson in the days when Leeds were establishing a reputation as the Premiership's biggest spenders. "It's one thing spending a fortune trying to catch us," said the Manchester United manager, "but any club who goes down that route might end up suffering, you know."

The crux of the matter, it was put to Ridsdale, was that by financing O'Leary's £90 million spending spree he had spent naively and with little foresight. "We were living a dream, going to places like Milan, Barcelona and Madrid, and we wanted to sustain that dream. Now we realise we can't take the Champions League for granted."

It was an admission of guilt at last. Yet the frequency with which Ridsdale peppered his defence with "I can live with myself" suggests he still does not understand that, if he had been more prudent to begin with, a lot of trouble would have been avoided. He, after all, signed O'Leary's cheques and, as recently as Wednesday night, informed Venables that Fowler's departure would mean Woodgate would not be sold.

Hunched in his chair, occasionally squirming in discomfort, Venables's body language spoke volumes. He was once ostracised by the Leeds public but now he is beginning to earn their sympathy, although it is little consolation.

"I have mixed emotions, although I should say that I'm leaning towards staying," he said. "The more I think about it, the more I feel it would be irresponsible to walk out on the players. But I've lost six internationals and no team in the country could have done that without suffering.

"It will hurt us, be sure of that. The clubs that do well in the Premiership are the ones with the biggest squads and we can't put ourselves in that category. This is not a top-four squad. It seems to me the message here is money is more important than players."

Ridsdale did little to dispute this. "We set ourselves targets and, while I know Terry will not be so happy, I'm delighted to say we've superseded those targets. There is cash in the bank now to safeguard our future so, one day, we can live the dream again."

And what about the effect on the supporters? "If it's the choice of losing 10,000 season-ticket holders or selling Woodgate for £9 million, there's not even a discussion."

This was the sort of statement that meant Ridsdale might have left the ground with a blanket over his head. He has written an open letter to the fans via the Yorkshire Evening Post but might learn at Goodison today it has done little to appease them. A protest will then be held at Elland Road during the FA Cup replay against Gillingham on Tuesday.

This is the man who once released a video of himself with the blurb 'the story of the most popular football club chairman ever'.

Guardian Service