WE CREATE ..NOT FIGHT
Bielsa: I’d only rate my team as 6/10
MARCELO BIELSA accepts that Leeds have “a problem” – and rated their form as only six out of 10.
The Elland Road boss says they have “missed an opportunity” to take charge at the top of the Championship after just one win in five games.
Leeds started the season on fire, racing to five wins in an unbeaten six games, but failing to convert chances and win their battles has seen the club slip to fourth.
Defeat by Blackburn last Saturday has Bielsa and his “15 assistants” doing a thorough analysis of what has to change.
He reckons Leeds are a team of “creating, not a fighting one” and must become more ruthless, starting at home to Ipswich tonight and Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Bielsa said: “In the first five games we won four of them. And in the last eight games we only won twice. It’s impossible not to see a problem. Are we the best team in the Championship? We can’t say we are too good to have ups and downs.
“Imagine in the last eight matches, instead of two, we had four wins – we would be the leaders of the Championship.
“We are trying to make the right diagnosis because otherwise any correction would be a mistake. We need to correct, we have to change this cycle of results and find out the real reason for us not winning the games.
“For me, the main reason is we need more chances to score every time. At the beginning we needed two or three chances to score once and now we need five, six chances to score. This is very important. We have other aspects too that I analyse.
“In the first cycle of games we lacked two players. Now, in this cycle, we have six missing. I don’t think this is the main problem. The average of the performances in the first five was seven out of 10 and now it’s around six out of 10. There’s not a big difference.
“The physical performance has always been satisfactory. It was not a problem to get possession and impose our style.
“It’s difficult to play with the ball, with a style and play with a friction game. Of course a team who is playing long balls and disputed balls don’t have the capacity to impose a style of play. Our team has more main features of creating, not a fighting one.
“We’re the second team with goals scored, we are the first team regarding goals missed, the next team after us missed only 50 per cent of the chances we missed.
“This leads us to the following conclusion – we are less efficient and we could build the offensive profile of the team. This is a long answer because I’m giving you the analysis I made.”