SMITH BUZZING WITH BEES

He’ll miss out on Villa but others will look at bright Brentford boss

SuCh is the fascination with Marcelo Bielsa, it seems every Leeds united match must be seen via his methods, behaviour and post- match analysis. This is understandable: Bielsa is one interesting man.

There are, however, 22 other coaches in the Championship and in Dean Smith, Brentford have an impressive one.

The number should be 23 but Steve Bruce lost his job at Aston Villa last week and Smith, a Midlander whose father was a Villa Park steward, has been mentioned as a possible replacement.

‘ The stewarding has gone downhill since my dad was working there,’ Smith half-joked about the cabbage that was thrown in Bruce’s direction last week. ‘It was out of order what happened to Steve.’

Smith said ‘there has been no approach’ from Villa and there will not be. But his profile is rising — on merit. ‘People will talk. For me, when you’re getting linked with Aston Villa, it tells you about the work we’re doing.’

Brentford’s performance at Elland Road was a snapshot of why other clubs would look at Smith. The Bees were cohesive but fluid, defensive but dangerous. They were the better team.

Leeds could argue that Brentford’s goal, from Neal Maupay, came from an unwarranted penalty, and Leeds had some good passages of their own before Pontus Jansson’s late equaliser, but Smith’s assessment of his own side was not overblown.

‘I feel at the moment we are quite a well- oiled machine,’ he said. ‘We made four changes and they slipped in seamlessly.’

Smith said he relished encountering Bielsa, ‘because it tests your coaching background, it gets you thinking’.

And Smith will make some think hard when they hear one of his opinions on Bielsa’s Leeds: ‘Out of possession they are very much like Cardiff City last year.

‘Cardiff pressed well, they went man for man and made it very difficult for you. Leeds are very similar to that. They probably play a bit more and are not as reliant on set-pieces as Cardiff were last season, but they have certainly got those traits when they haven’t got the ball.

‘ They are very aggressive, press forward very quickly and we had to be good on the ball. I thought we were.

‘I think people know what our style is. We have footballers all over the pitch, who want to play. We have a lot of artists but we are also capable of pressing. To do that, you need to have fit players, hungry players and players who want to get better. We have.’

If it sounds like a Bielsa blueprint, it is. There was nothing cocky about Smith, who next month has his third anniversary at Griffin Park, following four years at Walsall. It is not the most glamorous of pathways, but Smith is unflustered by the foreign/ British managerial debate. ‘I just see us as coaches,’ he said. ‘On my staff we have Richard O’Kelly, who has worked with me for a long time; Thomas Frank, who is an ex-Brondby head coach.

‘It doesn’t matter whether you are from Denmark, Argentina, Britain, we are all coaches and some people see the game differently.’

Bielsa saw Saturday’s outcome as ‘a fair result’, but the concern for Leeds is that injuries reveal their squad depth and Luke Ayling, sent off in injury time by ref Jeremy Simpson, faces suspension.

The club may face questions about missiles thrown on at Brentford’s penalty and Jansson’s description of the result as ‘a robbery’. Both clubs could also be asked about the dug- out confrontation between Sergi Canos and Ezgjan Alioski when Canos’s head appeared to hit the back of Alioski’s.

After 12 games, Leeds are three points better off than last season. Last October Leeds played five and lost four. The international break may do them good.