BIELSA LOSES THE PLOT ( AGAIN! )
Leeds manager rattled by spying joke and defeat at Ipswich
MARCELO BIELSA lost his head after Leeds lost theirs and it would take a brave person to back them in the play-offs after this dramatic loss at Ipswich.
Whether the pressure of missing out on automatic promotion or a third defeat in four games was the issue, the Leeds manager did not take kindly to a light-hearted question about his in famous Spy gate row after a semi-final against Derby was confirmed.
‘You know that it is a crime to spy,’ Bielsa responded when asked if he intended to spy on Derby ahead of Saturday’s play-off semifinal first leg. ‘Do you know it is a crime?
When you have your level of ignorance and you work as a journalist and when you have the right to ask questions and when you’re lying in your answers and you don’t assume the irony and you keep ignoring whether spying is a crime or not, you do not deserve a proper response.
‘You make your question knowing that observing an opponent is now a sanction and that’s why you ask this question. You deny the fact you know the answer.’ When apologies came and it was pointed out that the question was not entirely serious, Bielsa responded sharply: ‘You’re not funny.’
This was ‘ El Loco’ at his most angry. His team have been following the Bielsa example to a tee, falling to defeat in their final game of the regular season after a collapse in the second half of the campaign. A sense of mental fatigue has descended over them.
It was a damaging defeat for Leeds. Ipswich scored three at home for the first time this season, had last won at Bolton in early April and finished bottom of a division their opponents had topped at Christmas.
Worryingly, Leeds have forgotten how to defend. Ipswich’s Flynn Downes poked home from a free-kick that was not cleared in the first half, Andre Dozzell exploited acres of space to bag their second after the break and a horrendous mix-up between Kiko Casilla and Luke Ayling granted the home side their winner in the final minute.
‘ Today’s performance i s an accident, and we will forget it right now,’ insisted Bielsa. ‘ From tomorrow on, we will be focused on the next game.
‘I’m ashamed to say it — what made the difference between the game of today and the average we had for the whole season is that we contributed to the goals of the opponent in an exaggerated way.’
Leeds also lacked a clinical touch, Kemar Roofe’s slip when taking an 82nd-minute penalty following Luke Chambers’ s e nding- o f f symbolic of a team unable to put their chances away.
Mateusz Klich and Stuart Dallas had earlier helped bring the game level but that was not the story of the match. Leeds failed to finish a number of chances while Ipswich scored from three of their four.
Ipswich manager Paul Lambert was happy with the performance of his already relegated team. He said: ‘Leeds have been a really great side and not many teams have beaten them. We played really well, got the breaks in the right moments and we matched them f or a l ot of the game.’
That is what will trouble Bielsa most, jokes about Spygate aside. They ran the league in the early part of the campaign but go into the playoffs lacking confidence having failed to beat the bottom side.
By the end, defender Pontus Jansson had thrown down his shirt and stormed down the tunnel.
Just like Roofe, Leeds seem to be slipping at the worst possible time.