Leeds future looks healthy under the continued guidance of Marcelo Bielsa - The National 2/8/21
Argentine manager is expected to soon sign a new contract and his squad is taking shape nicely ahead of the new season
Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa during the pre-season
friendly match against Blackburn at Ewood Park.
Richard Jolly
Technically, Leeds United are in limbo again. Marcelo Bielsa
only signed his contract for the 2020-21 season on September 11, the day before
their campaign started with a 4-3 defeat to Liverpool. Now Bielsa joins Lionel
Messi among the ranks of the out-of-contract Argentinians who no one thinks is
going anywhere.
And yet this is a curiously reassuring form of instability.
Bielsa will re-sign. A manager with a history of abrupt departures and brief
spells elsewhere is already Leeds’ longest-serving manager since Simon Grayson;
complete this season and he will have spent longer in charge at Elland Road
than anyone since David O’Leary. The Irishman is a comparison in another
respect: Bielsa’s ninth-place finish was Leeds’ best in the top flight since
O’Leary steered them to fifth in 2002.
O’Leary famously took Leeds to Uefa Cup and Champions League
semi-finals and if pre-season friendlies are scarcely similar, Leeds’ summer fixture
list has at least revived memories of more cosmopolitan days: they lost 3-2 to
Real Betis on Saturday and face Ajax and Villarreal this week.
O’Leary’s faith in youth formed too much of his rhetoric. It
is something Bielsa shares. He is the oldest manager in a Premier League now
shorn of Roy Hodgson but has signed Wigan midfielder Sean McGurk and Birmingham
winger Amari Miller, both 18, this summer. Saturday brought the arrival of the
20-year-old Norwegian, Kristoffer Klaesson, who will understudy Illan Meslier,
21, in goal. That Kiko Casilla is loaned out should consign a footballing and
moral mistake to the past.
Bielsa may be the pensioner with a long-term vision but
Leeds’ immediate future looks healthy. He is aware of the theory his players,
exhausted by his all-action style of play, burn out before the end of seasons.
Leeds finished last year with four straight wins, 23 points from a possible 30
and only conceding eight goals in 11 games; they learnt from earlier
thrashings.
Bielsa nonetheless bought a left-back. The £13 million
($18m) purchase of Barcelona’s Junior Firpo provides a direct replacement for,
and an upgrade on, the departed Ezgjan Alioski. Bielsa has spent his reign
preferring multifunctional players there but Firpo is a belated specialist.
The complication is that Leeds’ outstanding individual last
season was often deployed at left-back: Stuart Dallas’ eight goals made him
arguably the campaign’s surprise revelation. The ultimate odd-job man may be
redeployed in midfield. That Jack Harrison also got eight goals made Leeds’
left flank remarkably productive. After three seasons of exponential
improvement while on loan, Harrison has finally been bought from Manchester
City.
And one of the questions of Leeds’ campaign surrounds their great
overachievers, each proof of Bielsa’s alchemy as a coach. Patrick Bamford
exceeded all realistic expectations to score 17 times. Kalvin Phillips became
an ever-present as England reached only the second major final in their
history. Liam Cooper captained a team to ninth in the top flight, while Luke
Ayling ended a year of relentless running with the second most tackles in the
Premier League.
Was each an outlier, a peak that must lead to a downturn?
After all, a Yorkshire club promoted a year earlier finished ninth, then took
two points from 17 games and plummeted to relegation. Leeds are not likely to
do a Sheffield United, and not merely because Phillips, in particular, scarcely
looks a one-season wonder. Raphinha proved a brilliant buy last season, one of
the league’s most talented wingers.
The untapped potential comes in part from other pedigree
recruits, in Rodrigo, Robin Koch and Diego Llorente, who had injury-hit debut
years. Thus far, Bielsa has turned potential into hugely entertaining performances
and encouraging results.