What the pundits/press/other fans are saying about Leeds?

For everything Leeds United related and everything not - Have your say... the Marching on Together way!
Forum rules
Please be sure you are acquainted with the forum rules outlined within our FAQs.

Help support the site by using our Amazon Affiliate link when making any purchases from Amazon.
User avatar
Smudge3920
Superstar
Superstar
Posts: 5204
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2020 4:08 pm
Location: Canada

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Smudge3920 »

Best post yet by a pundit/reporter...
User avatar
Fridge
First Team
First Team
Posts: 1432
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:13 am

Re: Mail article today about MB

Post by Fridge »

faaip wrote: Mon Jan 04, 2021 9:35 pm Daily Mail ..nuff said.
Gutter press :sick:
User avatar
Smudge3920
Superstar
Superstar
Posts: 5204
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2020 4:08 pm
Location: Canada

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Smudge3920 »

One thing I have noticed is how the majority of "pundits" are always pointing to "our drop in form" and how Bielsaball has been found out...then way in against our managers style...I hardly see any reports pointing to the constant array of injuries we have endured and lacking the depth of the teams above us ...and in some cases below us the fact we are still holding down 12th spot, 11 points above 18th place...We have a lot to be proud of...And a lot more to come ...MOT
gessa
Guest
Guest

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by gessa »

Smudge3920 wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:26 pm One thing I have noticed is how the majority of "pundits" are always pointing to "our drop in form" and how Bielsaball has been found out...then way in against our managers style...I hardly see any reports pointing to the constant array of injuries we have endured and lacking the depth of the teams above us ...and in some cases below us the fact we are still holding down 12th spot, 11 points above 18th place...We have a lot to be proud of...And a lot more to come ...MOT
Same pundits then bang on about VVD being out for LiVARpool and how it's affecting their season. Tosspots
User avatar
Smudge3920
Superstar
Superstar
Posts: 5204
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2020 4:08 pm
Location: Canada

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Smudge3920 »

gessa wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 9:25 pm Same pundits then bang on about VVD being out for LiVARpool and how it's affecting their season. Tosspots
:tup: exactly my point mate ...
User avatar
Smudge3920
Superstar
Superstar
Posts: 5204
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2020 4:08 pm
Location: Canada

Lovable Leeds have become an impossible team to dislike

Post by Smudge3920 »

“One thing that is very different in American sport and English football is, clubs belong to the communities. Loyalty depending on where you were born. That’s a different degree of passion than we have.

Excellent article from the Independant.ie

https://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer ... 63559.html
User avatar
Irish Ian
Site Contributor
Site Contributor
Posts: 12933
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2019 5:53 pm
Location: Directly above the centre of the Earth.

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Irish Ian »

From the Athletic:

Genius Bielsa turns human beings into dynamos


By George Caulkin May 9, 2021 151
Leeds United have two front feet. They do not compromise and there is no respite and when plan, identity, fitness and form all slot together, there is no more exhilarating or exhausting sight.

They move. Everywhere, they move, a ceaseless whirl of motion that fatigues the eye — just where are you supposed to look? — and drains the opposition. They catch you once and then they catch you again, just because they can.

What a collective performance this was, what a unit Marcelo Bielsa has created and what a perfect embodiment of club and place. “Contrary to what everybody thinks, I’m in love with tradition,” the manager said after his team had bludgeoned Tottenham Hotspur and how could anybody doubt it? Through innovation, he has restored Leeds to themselves; ferocious, in your face, don’t give a toss, nothing else matters. And above all else, really bloody good.

With three games to go (against Burnley, Southampton and West Bromwich Albion), Leeds are in the top half of the table and their long-delayed, long-awaited return to the Premier League has already been a triumph. If the one great sadness is that supporters have not been there to remind the division of what a force of nature Elland Road can be, then there is also compensation, because Leeds do not play like silence. They play like the boom of cannon fire.

Bielsa’s genius is turning human beings into dynamos. “Leeds are probably the fittest team in the Premier League,” said Tottenham’s interim manager Ryan Mason, but there is no probably about it. They ran Spurs to distraction, they harassed and intercepted, they nipped at toes, they recycled possession, sprinted forward and left chasms behind, offering hope in the same way that cats give mice a glimpse of freedom as they bat them from paw to paw. It is a savage illusion.

The limp 2-0 defeat at Brighton & Hove Albion was not a sign of slackening, of “job done, season over”. That suggestion was banished in a blur of white. Relentless does not relax. The same players responded, tearing at Tottenham, wading on together through the rain. Their tempo takes no prisoners, but inconsistency never defines them. They have not lost more than two league games in succession and they have scored three goals or more on eight occasions — four times at home and four away.

They have also dished out a few bloody noses to the so-called Big Six, none of whom have won at Leeds this season. There is something poetic about that, this great leviathan of the English game offering a reminder about stature and history and home and competition and how football rewards those who take the risk and who strive. Spurs looked like individuals in the same coloured shirts. Big Six? Leeds were giants.

Their maestro is a fidgety genius. Discomfort seeps from Bielsa on the touchline. He frets and he paces, hands clasped behind his back, head down, as if he contemplating a mathematical equation. Or he teeters on his haunches, finding his balance with a finger pressed to the turf. Or he perches on his pail. There are moments when he repels contact, seeking safety in his native language and unwilling to look interviewers in the eye, as if they might suck out his secrets.

bielsa
Bielsa lives every moment on the touchline (Photo: Michael Regan/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
If those things feel like barriers, the emptiness of the stadium brings a startling kind of intimacy. Because, by god, you can hear Bielsa. He bellows as he crouches and all of it is in English. They are simple messages, nudges to muscle memory. “PLEASE, NOW. QUICKLY, QUICKLY,” he shouted. And again, later: “QUICKLY, QUICKLY.” Everything is about propulsion and urgency. “MOVE THE BALL,” and “GO, GO. COME ON.”

Pick any player and he did all of it. Up front, Patrick Bamford ran until there was nowhere else to run, scoring his 15th goal of a fine season in front of Gareth Southgate, and making a case for unselfish, unremitting energy, a quality that might offer difference at the European Championship. In terms of scoring or assists, Harry Kane is the only Englishman (with 34) to have been involved in more goals than Bamford’s 22. This was timely.

On one wing, Jack Harrison drove into space, the rhythm-king for Leeds. On the other side, Stuart Dallas was irrepressible, lashing in his team’s opener. Son Heung-min’s equaliser came against the run of play, but it was a trifling inconvenience, with Robin Koch and Mateusz Klich laying down control. As Spurs became more desperate, they were picked off when Raphinha surged upfield and laid on the kindest pass for Rodrigo, who finished well.

In itself, this represented more possibility. Raphinha and Kalvin Phillips have been pivotal for Leeds, but Bielsa refused to rush either back from injury and both began the match on the substitutes’ bench. By the time of his goal, Rodrigo, Koch, Raphinha and Diego Llorente, all of whom were signed last summer, were on the pitch together. Where might the team be if that had happened more often, if there had been fewer disruptions?

And you can’t help but think about Bielsa and his relationship with Leeds: in a peripatetic managerial career, this unfathomable, jittery 65-year-old has been there longer than at any other club. One day, they will wake up and he will be gone, but his presence is a gift. “For a while now we have hoped to play on equal terms with an important opponent and in some way today we have managed to achieve that,” he said, but he was wrong. They were better.

More players: Illan Meslier, flash-quick in goal; Gjanni Alioski, sometimes undervalued, but a workhorse here. And, really, the names do not matter because everybody gave up part of himself to be bigger than himself. They do not have a Kane or a Gareth Bale but what they have is without price.

They have Bielsa, they have buy-in and they have the strength to be Leeds. When they move like this, it is glorious.
'
"Football is about the people and the players,” he said. “Then there are those who will mingle in the middle: the coaches, executives and journalists. That last group represents the worst part about football" Marcelo Bielsa
User avatar
Carrick Dave
Site Contributor
Site Contributor
Posts: 3845
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2010 1:46 pm

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Carrick Dave »

You think he’s impressed then? 😂

Great read.
User avatar
Byebyegeegee
First Team
First Team
Posts: 2391
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 5:14 pm
Location: God’s own county (north)

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Byebyegeegee »

“This great Leviathan of the English game” - love it!👏
User avatar
Smudge3920
Superstar
Superstar
Posts: 5204
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2020 4:08 pm
Location: Canada

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Smudge3920 »

Fantastic article...almost brought a tear to my eye ...love it ...
User avatar
whiteswan
Superstar
Superstar
Posts: 15703
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 1:10 am

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by whiteswan »

Sums us up nicely. Leviathon = something of enormous size
User avatar
Smudge3920
Superstar
Superstar
Posts: 5204
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2020 4:08 pm
Location: Canada

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Smudge3920 »

whiteswan wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 4:20 pm Sums us up nicely. Leviathon = something of enormous size
:geek:
User avatar
1964white
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 127717
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:46 am
Twitter: @1964white

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by 1964white »

Carrick Dave wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 8:29 am You think he’s impressed then? 😂

Great read.
I would think so Davy, we all are :lol:
User avatar
Orange Box
Manager
Manager
Posts: 3299
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2021 3:51 pm
Location: West of Scotland, formerly Cas Vegas

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Orange Box »

Fabulous article and a very easy ready. I only wish I could write as good as what he can.
WARNING: During game time, any post I make is not to be taken seriously, neither is it meant as offence. I'm a hot-blooded creature prone to moments of exasperation and expletive.
User avatar
1964white
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 127717
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:46 am
Twitter: @1964white

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by 1964white »

Garth Crooks on Phillips

Burnley might be safe but they had a very bad day at the office. I've gone on record as saying they have the most honest bunch of players in the league but they couldn't cope with Leeds' sheer running power at this stage of the season.

The player at the heart of some glorious football for Leeds was Kalvin Phillips. A beautiful striker of the ball, always looking to play forward and totally unselfish.

I've likened his game to that of Manchester United legend Bryan Robson, which might have been a stretch, but he's definitely a Jordan Henderson. If Phillips goes on to have the career either of those players have had, he will have done extremely well.
User avatar
Irish Ian
Site Contributor
Site Contributor
Posts: 12933
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2019 5:53 pm
Location: Directly above the centre of the Earth.

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Irish Ian »

By Richard Sutcliffe May 19, 2021 41
Just one game still to play and still no sign of a let-up from Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United.

That much was clear as the clock on the two giant electronic screens at either end of Southampton’s St Mary’s home stood rigidly still on 90 minutes, after an entertaining encounter had moved into the fifth of six scheduled minutes of stoppage time.

Already leading 1-0 thanks to Patrick Bamford’s deft finish, Leeds reclaimed possession inside their own box as goalkeeper Kiko Casilla broke up a home attack.

Most teams would have taken this as a sign to waste a few more precious seconds. But not Bielsa’s Leeds, as Casilla immediately looked upfield before picking out Raphinha on the right touchline with a raking 60-yard pass.

This was the cue for those clad in all white to pour forward in such numbers that, by the time Tyler Roberts stroked the ball into the corner of the net a few seconds later, there were three other Leeds players in the Southampton penalty area with left-back Ezgjan Alioski and Raphina just outside.

It was a masterclass in the full-throttle football that has won the Yorkshire club so many admirers to go with the 56 points that have already guaranteed a place in the all-time top 10 list of newly-promoted Premier League sides.

Relegated West Bromwich Albion await Bielsa’s side on the final day. Win what will be Elland Road’s first game with supporters in a little over 14 months and United will end the campaign fifth on the list of best-performing promoted teams since 1992, leapfrogging Sunderland’s class of 1999-00 and Wolves’ 2018-19 side in the process.

Best Newly Promoted Clubs
Newcastle United
1993-94*
77
3rd
1.83
Nottingham Forest
1994-95*
77
3rd
1.83
Blackburn Rovers
1992-93*
71
4th
1.69
Ipswich Town
2000-01
66
5th
1.74
Sunderland
1999-00
58
7th
1.53
Wolverhampton Wanderers
2018-19
57
7th
1.5
Reading
2006-07
55
8th
1.45
West Ham United
2005-06
55
9th
1.45
Sheffield United
2019-20
54
9th
1.42
Charlton Athletic
2000-01
52
9th
1.37
* 42 game season
Such an impressive performance in their first season back among the elite for 16 years means those few thousand fans fortunate enough to get a golden ticket on Sunday will be able to give their side a richly deserved salute.

Bielsa, too, will undoubtedly feel the love as supporters wait to hear whether the Argentinian is staying on or not next season. The smart money says “yes” with The Athletic understanding Bielsa has recently sounded out members of his backroom staff as to whether they can commit for another 12 months in England.

Providing he stays, the challenge facing the former Argentina and Chile national team coach will be how to improve on this hugely impressive first season back.

Howard Wilkinson, still the last Englishman to lift the league title in this country, knows a thing or two about the challenges Bielsa will be facing after encountering a similar scenario exactly 30 summers ago.

Back then, United’s first campaign back among the elite for eight years had ended in an even more impressive fourth-place finish. Wilkinson’s task was to further hone that energy and excitement to keep United moving forward, something he did magnificently that the league title was back residing at Elland Road the following May.

Football has changed a lot since those days, a point underlined by how three of the four best performing newly-promoted sides in the Premier League era date back to the opening three seasons of the fledgeling competition.

But Bielsa, like Wilkinson back in those heady days when Leeds burst out of the Second Division, is a manager committed to driving his team forwards.

“A number of things need to be done to keep a club progressing after one decent year in the top division,” Wilkinson, now 77, tells The Athletic. “Yes, there is momentum after, if you like, having gone on to bigger and better things. As opposed to what can happen if you struggle in that first season up.

“That is a big confidence builder and it remains with you. However, the end of that first season is a time when you have to assess what has happened and ask what can be done better looking forwards.

“It is a very important time. At Leeds all those years ago, we asked ourselves a series of questions. How many of those youngsters that are starting to look as if they can be players can be involved next time around?

“What had we learned last season? What surprised us about last season? Both in a negative way and a positive. And where in particular do we think there has to be major improvement? Is it one area or a couple of areas?

“For Leeds now, this is an opportunity to reassess from a nice position because that reassessment is being done on the basis you coped.”

Like Bielsa in the upcoming close season, the big priority for Wilkinson 30 years ago was finding a quality left-back suited to the fast-paced style espoused by the manager. Tony Dorigo duly arrived from Chelsea for £1.3 million and became such a big part of the title success he was voted fans’ player of the year.

leeds 1992
Wilkinson (bottom row, far left) oversaw great success, including the title in 1992 (Photo: Getty Images/Getty Images)
Rod Wallace also moved north from Southampton for £1.6 million a month or so later, while other astute additions in the summer of 1991 included Sheffield Wednesday youngsters David Wetherall and Jon Newsome, plus Nottingham Forest midfielder Steve Hodge.

Wilkinson adds: “This time of year is all about getting your preparation right. Making sure the pre-season fixtures are as you would like them, looking at what you previously thought you might need compared to what you actually do need.

“We’d identified the players we wanted before that summer (of 1991) started. I won’t say early in the previous season. But, certainly, as the season went on you have your ideas about what might need to be done in the summer.

“Having said that, it’s only when that first season is over that you can properly sit down and think, ‘Was I right in my predictions?’. If I wasn’t right, I then asked myself what I had to do about that.

“Of course, it is different now. By that, I mean the sense that tenures are shorter. You haven’t got as long as a manager. It is also a global situation in terms of every player being looked at. But what has not changed is the need to find a way to win with the players you have got.”

Like Wilkinson, Bielsa has certainly become a Leeds manager who has found a way to win. The 2-0 triumph at St Mary’s was the 72nd of his near three-year reign, his side’s tendency to go for broke or die trying underlined by them being the only team in the Premier League not to draw an away game this season.

Any new signings — United are understood to be focusing on strengthening the midfield, along with searching for a left-back — will have to fit into that mindset.

Just who Leeds move for remains to be seen but Wilkinson is a firm fan of a team who moved up to eighth in the table courtesy of Tuesday night’s win at St Mary’s.

“I have enjoyed Leeds, yes,” he says about his old club’s resurgence under Bielsa. “Of course I have. It is a team I managed and a team where I spent most of my managerial career. I enjoyed it and never wanted to leave, really. Only the takeover (by Caspian Media Group in 1996) changed that.

“It has been good to see the club doing well. Not just for Leeds but Yorkshire as well. This county needs success. We need our football teams and our rugby teams and our sportspeople to be successful. In the long run, this undoubtedly is better for all of us. Whether (you are) into sport or not, success creates energy for the county.”

As for next season, Wilkinson urges fans not to get too carried away.

“Leeds have surprised a few this season,” he adds. “Which is good. It has not just been different, it has been very different. The job now, as coach, is to look at what he has got, look at the challenges ahead and come up with ways of dealing with them. He has certainly found a way this season.

“We had that same challenge in 1991 that Leeds face now. You don’t achieve things by sitting there and saying, ‘Didn’t we do well?’. The first target when the season starts is, ‘How many points do we need to avoid relegation?’. The sooner you get those points, the better and the happier you are.”

Bielsa, surely the manager to make the biggest impact at Elland Road since Wilkinson’s own arrival in 1988 at a time when United were hovering dangerously close to the relegation zone in the old Second Division, really couldn’t have put it better himself.
'
"Football is about the people and the players,” he said. “Then there are those who will mingle in the middle: the coaches, executives and journalists. That last group represents the worst part about football" Marcelo Bielsa
User avatar
Irish Ian
Site Contributor
Site Contributor
Posts: 12933
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2019 5:53 pm
Location: Directly above the centre of the Earth.

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Irish Ian »

From the Athletic..

After more than a decade and a half away, Leeds United might have wondered what the Premier League had in store for them this season. The question should have been, ‘What did Leeds United have in store for the Premier League?’

They have become a narrative as much as a football team. Head coach Marcelo Bielsa has become a character in his own right in a single season in the English top flight. A top-half finish was pretty much everything they could have hoped for.

The Athletic has taken a look at their 2020-21 season at large, and reviewed the best and worst of what went on at Elland Road and beyond.

Player of the season

Stuart Dallas has moved past the point where he can be considered underrated anymore. No one still sees him as the mid-table Championship winger he once was. His stats alone, even the obvious ones, make it clear that he is a Premier League-level player.

But when you really think about it, it hits you again. Dallas has become a phenomenal player for Leeds even in a team that has had other genuine shining lights. Raphinha is a future Brazil international. Patrick Bamford has shone in front of goal. Luke Ayling has played every game and taken to the Premier League like a duck to water.

Dallas, though, has scored eight goals and provided two assists while being deployed in five distinct positions. He has started all 38 league games too. He dragged Leeds’ 10 men to a famous win at title-bound Manchester City. He’s simply a bona fide Premier League player in a team that belongs in the division.

Best moment of the season

It was about a second after the ball left Ezgjan Alioski’s foot in added time at the Etihad. This had all been preceded by about 50 minutes of defending, Leeds breached just once by the then-champions elect.

There was this sudden realisation. Dallas was in. The pass was weighted perfectly. The Northern Ireland international nipped in ahead of John Stones, took a touch with his right foot and then fired the ball past Ederson.

The nature of the 2-1 win made the moment. After defending with 10 men for more than a half against a Pep Guardiola side, Leeds had snatched it at the last.

Worst moment of the season

About three minutes into the 6-2 loss at Old Trafford.

Anyone with any affinity for Leeds United has been waiting the best part of two decades to compete on the same level — on paper, if not in reality — as Manchester United again. Even with certain frailties in the side, there was a belief that they would be able to give their fierce rivals a game.

It became clear that was not the case as Scott McTominay charged through for a second time, putting the hosts 2-0 up.

Leeds recovered from that nightmare opening three minutes and fought back, and even managed to make a good show of losing by four goals, but all hope was really gone the second time the ball hit the net.

Funniest moment of the season

For such a noticeably serious, generally agitated man, Bielsa is great for comedy moments.

There are the little exchanges between himself and his translator. There are his occasional fashion faux pas, such as his broken glasses that had taken the full brunt of a Bamford strike on the training ground, or the upturned woolly hat he’s taken to wearing in recent months.

A personal favourite is whenever the camera cuts to him on the touchline and he’s doing something, well… Loco.

The best was probably when he was asked who would play in the centre of defence against West Ham and he tried to be subtle. He replied: “It could be Ayling, it could be (Kalvin) Phillips.” He was then asked whether he’d keep them guessing. As he started speaking in Spanish, his translator suppressed a grin.

He then translated: “That’s to say, Rodrigo Moreno will come in for Diego Llorente and the XI will be Meslier, Dallas, Ayling, Cooper, Alioski, Phillips, Klich, Moreno, Raphinha, Bamford and Harrison.”


Goal of the season

The team that lined up against Liverpool on the opening day of the season was, barring Robin Koch, one that could have been picked in the Championship. Understandably then, after Liverpool battered away at the Leeds goal for the opening 12 minutes, there might have been fears about how this Premier League thing would go for Bielsa’s boys.

But a Phillips ping, and a Jack Harrison touch and dribble later, those worries disappeared. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez were left dumbfounded. It was a stunning strike, with Harrison’s weaker foot, that introduced the Premier League to this Leeds side and showed the quality they had.


Game of the season

There are quite a few shouts for this one. October’s 3-0 win over Aston Villa felt impressive at the time, given Villa’s start and the manner of the performance. Beating Everton a month later was similarly impressive. Yet it is impossible to look past that remarkable 2-1 victory at Manchester City.

Leeds had had a good season but needed a standout win, the kind you reflect on 20 years down the line. It was a backs-to-the-wall smash-and-grab win, but it was brilliant.

Bielsa planned the game to a tee. They let centre-half Stones become City’s main attacking outlet. They countered remarkably. They won in dramatic circumstances. The only shame was that the Etihad’s away end, like the rest of the ground, was empty.

Quote of the season

Bielsa has a habit of managing to fire out Buddha-level philosophy in every press conference he has ever sat down for. The day after the announcement of the Super League project, Leeds played would-be participants Liverpool. Bielsa was asked for his thoughts post-match: “Of course, there are different teams, some more important than others, but they should be conscious of the needs that we need each other.

“But because football always has a view that is more commercial now… it’s natural in the world of businesses, looking only at the economic aspect, that the ones that produce the most demand the majority of it.

“That’s something that is common in the world of business but football is not only a business — but before or after, it was going to happen because football belongs to everybody, even if there are owners. The real owners of football are the ones who love the badge and without them, football will disappear.”

Piece you most enjoyed reading

I’m in a privileged position where I get to read what Phil Hay writes about Leeds United. Unlike the other people composing The Athletic’s club-by-club season reviews, I’ve generally been able to sit back and just enjoy his work.

His piece on Bamford after his hat-trick at Villa was dripping with detail, brilliantly written and, somehow, turned around just a day after the game. It tells you everything you need to know about Bamford and how Bielsa has turned him into the player he should always have been.

Stat that sums them up

Probably Leeds’ final goal difference of plus-8. To finish in the top half, having scored 62 times, shows their attacking flair. To concede 54 shows the instability of their defence at various points. They are great entertainers.

That said, Leeds have improved considerably at the back as the season has rolled on. Next time, they should be much better.

Wish for next season

There are two big ones.

The first, really, is for more of the same — another solid season in the Premier League would be plenty, although maybe with slightly fewer heavy defeats. Even just getting to watch Bielsa’s football is a plus, so him penning another contract would be excellent, and if it came with European qualification, then all the better.

The other thing is a bit personal, a bit professional.

When I first spoke to Phil about his operation, the only thing he said was it was a shame he would miss the end of the season. Phil is one of the nicest guys in the industry and deserves nothing less than a full 38 games next time around.

He’s very much on the mend now, and I’m looking forward to his return already.

(Photo: Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
'
"Football is about the people and the players,” he said. “Then there are those who will mingle in the middle: the coaches, executives and journalists. That last group represents the worst part about football" Marcelo Bielsa
User avatar
1964white
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 127717
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:46 am
Twitter: @1964white

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by 1964white »

Good article Ian :tup:
User avatar
Irish Ian
Site Contributor
Site Contributor
Posts: 12933
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2019 5:53 pm
Location: Directly above the centre of the Earth.

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by Irish Ian »

'
"Football is about the people and the players,” he said. “Then there are those who will mingle in the middle: the coaches, executives and journalists. That last group represents the worst part about football" Marcelo Bielsa
User avatar
whiteswan
Superstar
Superstar
Posts: 15703
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 1:10 am

Re: What the pundits/press/coaches are saying about Bielsa's Leeds

Post by whiteswan »

Irish Ian wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:34 am Guardian season Preview.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... no-9-leeds
Nice read Ian.....
Post Reply