Bielsa holds others to such high standards. But repeat of Old Trafford thrashing is on him - The Athletic 16/8/21

By Phil Hay

“You have to maintain the enthusiasm, the ambition and the desire to grow; to take on board the expectations you have generated in the public. There’s a moment in the development of a team where the recognition of what happened before, it disappears, and the demand for what’s next increases — with (the assumption) that all teams have the fortitude to achieve more.”

This, Marcelo Bielsa said on Thursday, was the reality of football and football management. Peaks of exhilaration consume you and people around you but not indefinitely and not always for long. What to aim for after promotion? What to aim for after ram-raiding the Premier League’s top half? How to satisfy the appetite of a city of disciples when high peaks of success are already behind you?

The answer is always to shoot higher again but as Bielsa admitted, it is easier to talk about shooting higher than to actually do it. The consequence of the ceiling being broken repeatedly at Elland Road is that Leeds and Bielsa are compelled to keep breaking it. Phenomenal in the Championship for two seasons and beyond reproach in the Premier League last year. Meaning this season came with the hope of another bounce.

And then, against Manchester United yesterday, Bielsa took a dig in the ribs, like nothing he has had on the first day of an English campaign before. Routed by another four goal margin at Old Trafford, it dragged him through a repeat of the post mortem he conducted at the same ground in December. Back then, Leeds’ 6-2 defeat had an odd, evolutionary feel to it, like a result which had to happen at some stage. Bielsa and Leeds could not enter the Premier League without a few fireworks exploding in their face. But the novelty of carnage was less apparent on Saturday as Bruno Fernandes completed a hat-trick and Leeds tailed off to a 5-1 loss. Thus, the demand for what comes next increases at home to Everton next Saturday.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is not Bielsa’s kryptonite because at Elland Road in April, Leeds managed Solskjaer’s Manchester United with discipline and good sense. Even Bielsa seemed content to see his players rein in the mayhem and see out a perfunctory 0-0 draw. But twice at Old Trafford his team and tactics have been cut to ribbons, with obvious comparisons between the two matches. For a coach who holds himself, his staff and his squad to exceptionally high standards, his suggestion that there was a “bigger difference” in last season’s contest than there was on Saturday will not stop yesterday’s game wounding the coach in him more, precisely because the similarities were too close.

There was a spell, for what felt like mere seconds, where Leeds were reprieved as Luke Ayling powered up his right foot and beat David De Gea from 25 yards out. But 1-1 in the 49th minute was 4-1 on the hour and 5-1 with 22 numbing minutes to go. The irony of December’s scoreline was that it was possible to paint the argument that Leeds actually played relatively well (which Bielsa did, at an hour-long press conference a few days later). This skirmish was harder to mitigate, even if Leeds had made a fist of it for longer. Specks of a performance faded into incoherence and when it came to Bielsa’s plan, it hit the wall as comprehensively.

He took gambles beforehand and some bigger than others, not that he sees selecting players as a roll of the dice. They are either ready or they are not and when it came to Kalvin Phillips — a late starter in pre-season after his run to the European Championship finals with England — Bielsa decided he was not. Luke Shaw and Harry Maguire started for Manchester United.

It is no secret with Leeds that when Phillips is missing, his absence often makes the team look like downloading a replacement stalled at 70 per cent. Robin Koch played instead, up against Fernandes and given the challenge of showing the versatility Bielsa looks for in centre-backs who moonlight as midfielders. Fernandes forced the issue impressively and Paul Pogba, punishing pockets of space, did his bit too.

Bielsa said afterwards that he “liked how (Koch) played” and that Leeds’ trouble lay in their inability to turn over possession in areas where they could transition and wreak havoc. But what was apparent at Old Trafford last season, where Leeds were 4-0 down inside 31 minutes, was that trouble came from Solskjaer’s midfielders finding ways to unhinge and run off Bielsa’s. Fernandes did likewise yesterday, either side of scoring the first goal. Manchester United’s precision in finishing was almost absolute and for all that Phillips was a part of the heavy defeat here eight months earlier, he was the clearest solution to some of the problems that developed.

Phillips sat on the bench, popping up occasionally for a stretch on the touchline, but Bielsa’s tactic at half-time was to sacrifice Rodrigo and switch Dallas from left-back to the middle of the pitch. Ayling scored spectacularly but Leeds were sucked in by the rush of his goal and within five minutes, the lucre had gone up in smoke. It felt once more like Leeds and Bielsa had burned some of the bank notes themselves.

What this result does to the mindset of a club who are genuinely happy with their summer remains to be seen. Bielsa could not have been more effusive on Thursday about pre-season — the improvements to infrastructure and the process of recruitment — and when the club’s chairman, Andrea Radrizzani, turned up at Thorp Arch, there were discussions about more alterations to the training ground. Bielsa is not inclined to stand still, which is why the first result of this season in isolation will hurt. Jumping up from ninth place asks a lot of a team in their second year of Premier League life. Avoiding slaughter at Old Trafford was a more attainable aim, much as Leeds’ impetus will be better gauged by a meaningful stretch of fixtures.

In terms of credit, Bielsa has as much cash in the bank at Leeds as Pablo Escobar used to bury in the Colombian soil and two things were noticeable about the trips he has taken to Old Trafford: firstly, the good grace with which the support took last season’s hammering and secondly, the patient applause his players were given by the away end at full-time yesterday. No recriminations and no mutiny which, when a bad day falls on the back of so many good, is how it has to be. But the fact remains that high standards create higher standards again, and levelling off can feel like a backwards step.

Are Leeds’ Bielsa second love, he was asked last week; second now to Newell’s Old Boys? “I would like to answer when I no longer work here,” he replied, in short because neither he nor anyone else can see the full picture; how it goes from here, how it finishes and which peaks he might yet scale. Bielsa’s ambition is unrelenting but the idea of moving forward this season cannot have involved another shoeing in Manchester. Which will doubtless become apparent when, as is habitual in moments where football goes against him, he turns up the dial at Thorp Arch this week.