I’M MARCELO BIELSAARGH DYCHE: I’D GO SEVEN SUBS AS KOP BOSS
Leeds manager won’t use injuries or Covid as an excuse for side’s slump... instead he insists that HE is to blame
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MARCELO BIELSA is refusing to curse Leeds’ poor fortune even after they were hit by a raft of Covid cases and injuries.
The Yorkshire club’s last two Premier League games have been called off as a result of mounting absences preventing them from naming a full squad.
Though some players have returned for today’s clash with Burnley, Leeds will be without a number of key men.
However, boss Bielsa is in no mood to join the likes of Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel in questioning why fixtures are continuing in the current climate.
Instead, the Argentine has shared his belief that all teams are facing similar challenges and so the competition as a whole is not being unfairly skewed.
He said: “The reality that we’re facing is not only ours.
“I can’t say that a healthy player is in an ideal condition to compete when they haven’t competed for one month or three weeks.
“You need a period to reach that high level. But that’s the reality, and the teams we are coming up against have similar problems.
“The competition always compares the reality of two teams – so our problems, our opponents have them. It’s not that we have problems and our opponents don’t, or that our opponents have problems and we don’t. The proportions are more or less similar.”
Bielsa did concede catching up on missed fixtures is likely to be difficult.
With the schedule packed out even in normal circumstances, he believes extra time may be required to complete the season. He added: “We know how many games have been suspended up until now, but we don’t know how many games there will be suspended in the future.
“As a result, I don’t know how the authorities are going to manage the situation with the time that they have.
“Clearly, we can’t think that in the middle of a pandemic that the situation is normal.”
Leeds went into their
Covid-enforced break off the back of three straight defeats with 14 goals conceded.
But Bielsa blames himself for that run, rather than the fact his squad have been stretched to breaking point.
“The evaluation of my task in these last few months is negative,” he added.
“The situations we have had to go through, I wasn’t able to resolve them as I thought I would.
“The majority of the things that have happened, I thought would happen.
“I imagined our resources would have resolved them – but evidently those resources weren’t adequate.
Even if there was a high percentage of injuries – and those are things you can’t pre-empt – the other things that have defined the lowering of our performance, I thought they could happen and I wasn’t able to resolve them.
“I focus on the performance of the team and the weaknesses that we have shown were the ones I had precisely worked on to elevate us from last season.
“So when I made the decision to work here for one more year, it was because
I had the conviction that the team could get better.
“That depended on some decisions and some developments.
“I wanted these developments to help the team to grow – I didn’t achieve it.”
JURGEN KLOPP’S simmering ‘subs spat’ with Sean Dyche has taken a turn for the bizarre.
The Liverpool boss has been told he has not gone far enough with his campaign for the return of FIVE replacements to help clubs cope with the Covid fixture pile-up.
Despite insisting three is plenty even in the current climate, Dyche has now cheekily upped the ante, claiming he would be pushing for SEVEN subs if he was in charge of the Reds.
Klopp claims Dyche’s three-subs argument is putting player welfare at risk, but the Burnley boss insists he has no axe to grind and said: “If I’m now the Liverpool manager, do you think I want five subs?
“Of course, I do, exactly. If I was at that level at that club I’d say the same. In fact,
I’d say I wanted seven subs because I’ve got all these top-class footballers who want to play and the more I can get them on the pitch, the better.”
Dyche (below) has had run-ins with Klopp, with the rivals clashing in the tunnel during the Clarets’
1-0 win at Anfield last January.
Clubs voted last season against permanently allowing the five subs used during Operation Restart in 2020, and Dyche is happy to fight his
corner for smaller sides worried a return would benefit the larger squads of the Premier League big guns. He said: “People suggested I was talking about Liverpool and I wasn’t.
The fact is their challenge is different to ours. Their success brings lots more games.
“If you’re facing my challenge now, you say, ‘Hang on a minute, does five subs give me more power? No, it doesn’t, because I haven’t got 25 world-renowned figures in my squad’.
“By common sense, five subs would benefit them, but it’s not about the big clubs, it’s about the Premier League – and they make the decisions, so there’s no pressure on me as a manager.
“To say I wouldn’t be in favour of five subs is a misconception. My view is that the superpower clubs just have a bit more leeway because they carry big squads of top international players. If you can change five of those, it must be some kind of advantage.”
Dyche refused to rule out the need for an extension to the current Covid-hit campaign, with 18 Premier League games among more than 70 across the top four divisions to have so far been called-off due to the pandemic.
Burnley already face having to squeeze at least four rearranged fixtures into the second half of the campaign, and Dyche reckons there could be the need for an additional period after the scheduled end to the season in May. “We’ll have to see what happens, but if the games being re-scheduled go so far, then possibly,” he added.
At Leeds today, Burnley hope to welcome back three of their four players who had been ruled out by Covid.