HEAVYWEIGHT TUSSLE
We look ahead to today’s clash between Aston Villa and Leeds
GONE by Christmas. That was the verdict in many quarters when Marcelo Bielsa was dramatically unveiled by Leeds on a sun-kissed day in June.
Sure, the 63-year-old had vast experience and the adoration of Pep Guardiola. He’d managed Argentina in a World Cup and coached some of the finest players on the planet.
But this was Elland Road. The madhouse. A place where managers rarely last longer than the snowman in your back garden.
Six games for Dave Hockaday and Darko Milanic. Twelve for Uwe Rosler. Paul Heckingbottom, Bielsa’s immediate predecessor, lasted just 16. Once the games piled up and Bielsa’s high-tempo style took its toll, wouldn’t he, too, be packed out of the door?
“I’d like him to be a success,” said pundit Stan Collymore. “But does he have the energy to keep at it day after day in a demanding league like the Championship?
“Can they sustain the pace without a monster squad? I wouldn’t be at all surprised in January to find that Bielsa and Leeds had already parted company.”
In fairness to the former Liverpool striker, such sentiments were widely held, not least by world-weary Leeds supporters.
Yet, the “project” as Bielsa calls it, is in rude health with the Whites top of the table pre-weekend and riding a five-game winning streak.
Whatever happens at Villa Park this afternoon, Leeds will celebrate Christmas with a place in the top two. Indeed, no club in this wildly unpredictable season has spent more gameweeks (11) at the summit of the Championship.
Unpredictable
Bielsa, meanwhile, has quickly become a cult figure. From lookalike children at Halloween to the release of a Christmas charity single titled Bielsa Rhapsody, the Argentine has captured the public imagination in West Yorkshire.
“Affection is the maximum aspiration for any human being,” he said this week. “It makes me very thankful, but also ill at ease because I don’t think I deserve the recognition I am getting.”
What certainly does deserve recognition is the way an ostensibly limited – and small – group of players have absorbed his extensive tactical demands and translated them into performances both glittering and gritty.
“I think my adaptation was very natural,” he said. “When you have noble opponents with good intentions, when you have fair referees, when you have an impeccable organisation and pitches of high quality, then all competitions are similar.
“The only challenge is to impose your style. In that way, this experience is similar to the previous ones I had as a coach.
“In football, we have a sentence that says ‘You have to play according to the qualities of the players you have’.
“But I have never been the head coach of a group that prevented me from developing or implementing my ideas. That is why I have some doubts regarding this concept.
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Another is an impatience with questions asking him to speculate on the future and a determined ambivalence at odds with football’s partizan sensibilities.
These traits were again in evidence on Friday when he was asked about Villa’s promotion credentials.
Credentials
“It is a very long competition, and as the play-offs offer many possibilities, any conclusion will be premature,” shrugged Bielsa, whose side start the game with a 12-point lead over their opponents.
“Every time I am being asked the same question in a different way. Unfortunately, I can’t give you a different answer.
“For any lucid observer, it would be irresponsible to predict because we have only played half of the games so far.
“If you ask me ‘Do Aston Villa have the players to get promoted?’ Yes. Do they have the structure? Yes. Do they have a brilliant head coach? Of course.
“But you have more than six teams with all these things in place. So we can’t draw conclusions now. We have to wait until the end.”
It was a similar story when asked about transfers, especially given the unexpected sale of a homesick Samu Saiz to Getafe.
“The possibility of strengthening the team is hypothetical,” added Bielsa, who will throw Luke Ayling straight into the first-team today after the right-back made a surprise return from the knee injury that has sidelined him since October.
“It is not concrete. There are some clear facts, of course. For example we have less players now than at the beginning of the season. But to add players and at the same time increase the level of the team is not easy. Only if we find players better than the ones who left will it be a good addition to the team.
“We also have to take into account his adaptation to a new team. But I say again, this is all theoretical.”
The consensus is that a Leeds side already digging into the youth ranks will need help in January if better-resourced sides – like Villa – are to be kept at bay.
Of course, the consensus last summer was that Bielsa would be clearing his desk by now. As the man himself insists, it is always dangerous to make predictions.