Leeds will run their guts out for Bielsa
WILL Leeds players burn out under Marcelo Bielsa? Don’t make me laugh. They train for two hours a day. Play two games a week. It ain’t the hardest job in the world.
You’ve got Royal Marines trudging through mud and carrying gear round for 15 hours and they’ve still got the mental capacity to save lives.
All we’re asking a footballer to do is knock a ball down the line or jog around for 8km. I mean, come on lads. Let’s live in the real world.
I played at Elland Road once in my career. Scored an own goal for Bradford, wanted to disappear into the ground. But I was still absolutely buzzing to play in front of 30,000 fans. If you don’t want to do that 23 times a year, you shouldn’t be in the game.
Bully
And wouldn’t you want to work with someone like Bielsa? I’d run my nads off for someone so experienced and so respected across the world. I would do every extra running circuit I could to reach his levels.
That said, the mentality of players has definitely changed. The amount that they are willing to give to achieve their goals and dreams.
Push a player to the point of exhaustion these days is like ‘Oh my god, you’re a bully, you’re a danger to coaching’.
Of course, you don’t want to push anybody to the point that they’re physically ill or can’t cope mentally.
But the brutal fact is, you need that physical and mental resilience in football. Far too many lads now are quick to look for an exit route when the chips are down and things get hard. A good recruitment process will weed them out.
I’m not some old-school dinosaur. I work in a Premier League academy and I see what a mind-boggling amount of work goes on before anyone has even set foot on the pitch. Sleep, nutrition, individual workloads – a lot of sports science is very, very good.
But I’ve been a pro. I’ve played 50 games in a season. The only games I ever missed were for red cards.
And believe me, players can go a lot further than sport scientists tell you – often because they are being manipulated by players. They’ll ask a player ‘How sore do you feel on a scale of 1-10’ and the player will say 5 or 6 because they can’t be arsed to play. I’m not kidding. That’s why so many managers now employ their own sports scientist. That way, they’ll listen to what he wants and not what players moan about. you’ve got lads going ‘Oh, I can’t, I’m tired today’, then what you’ve got is a lad who isn’t physically up to being a professional. Simple as that.
Surprise
Of course you’re tired after 40 games. But so are the other team. Adrenaline gets you through. As Bielsa himself has said, it’s mind over matter.
Over the course of the season, I’m sure Leeds will dip. His style has never been tested across 46 games, or in a division where ball retention is so poor. Our rate of turnover is unbelievable compared to foreign sides.
I think that’s where Thomas Christiansen, who managed Leeds for 35 games last year, was a little bit taken by surprise. He probably didn’t have the experience to compensate.
But I don’t believe that this bloke – with his unbelievable pedigree – has come to Leeds without plan B, C, D, E and F.
I don’t believe he’d have stepped into the Championship without cast-iron guarantees that he could recruit players in January.
I think he can be the man to take Leeds back where they belong. And as for ruining his players, don’t believe a word of it. If they really want to, they will press non-stop from now until May.