The Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa has just seen his team get demolished by Manchester City and is refusing to get despondent and just wants his team to return to the previous form that they showed the week before, when they only narrowly lost to the European Champions Chelsea.
The manager calls the Chelsea match their “best game of the season” and as we have seen at times Leeds can surprise any team with their high pressing and attacking play, but Bielsa is not going to allow one bad game destroy their season. He admits that, rather than worrying about facing Arsenal, his one task is to get his team back into confident mood they have shown at many eciting games in this campaign.
He told the official Leeds website: “They [Arsenal] are one of the important teams in the league.
“At this moment, we’re especially concerned about getting back to our best moment, rather than the opponent we’re coming up against.
“The confidence and fortitude of players is all linked to what they do on the pitch.
“The immediate and what is closest, is that against Chelsea we played our best game of the season up until now, then against City, the worst. Both versions were produced with two or three days difference.
“I have the confidence and the obligation to manage for us to reproduce the performance against Chelsea, not the one against Manchester City. Having a high spirit is part of my job.
“To be able to face the most difficult moments, you come out of them correcting things, taking on board things, not delegating responsibilities, not looking to blame others, they’re all the things we try to do.
“Any game that was next was always a possibility to revert or comeback from the last game.”
It is admirable that the coach doesn’t bemoan that he has a large portion of his team out injured or the fact that they have to play every few days. He is just going to get on with his job the best he can.
I like that!
An admirable stance in the face of adversity.It would have been so easy for him to bemoan the horrendous injury list, yet he remains focussed on getting the best out of the players available to him.I can appreciate why Bielsa is held in high esteem by many experienced Managers.While I do hope we beat Leeds, I would be very disappointed if they were relegated.
His way of pressing high and turning to play man to man when losing possession of the ball is exhausting and needs a lot of balance, otherwise relegation is likely.