Bielsa before Manchester United just wants to get on with it - The Square Ball 18/2/22

GIVE TO THE PUBLIC

Written by: Moscowhite • Daniel Chapman

When he was Leeds United’s manager, Howard Wilkinson used to give so much pre-match detail that his speeches were played over the public address system to the fans arriving at Elland Road. His press conferences were meandering, his programme notes were voluminous, after interviews he was accused of being boring and obtuse.

Then sometimes a big match would come around, like the crucial Easter clash with local promotion rivals Sheffield United in 1990, when Wilkinson’s programme notes were replaced by 48 words in large bold type above his signature:

What can I say about today’s game that has not already been said or appeared in print.

Including this afternoon’s encounter we have five matches to go in what can turn out to be LEEDS UNITED’S most important season for a decade.

So let’s get on with it.

— Howard Wilkinson

I wonder if Marcelo Bielsa is taking the same all-business approach to Sunday’s match with Manchester United. Either that or he just wanted Friday morning’s press conference over and done with, because he sure wasn’t getting drawn into any long debates. There may have been more in the part of the press conference that wasn’t broadcast or transcribed online, because it is embargoed for Sunday’s newspapers — although those embargoes don’t usually last long if something explosive has gone off. We’ll have to wait and see what the Sunday papers print. For now, this is what we’re working with.

About the game being a chance to lift the mood around the club, Bielsa said:

“A classic game is always a challenge that is very motivating.”

That was the first question and answer, and that set the tone. Given the injuries, would it be an achievement to stay in the Premier League this season?

“[Staying up is] an obligation and the injuries don’t justify the season that we’re having.”

Burnley stayed up last season with 39 points, will that sort of points total be enough this season?

“I haven’t looked at that kind of data.”

Jeremiah Mullen, who was impressive for the Under-23s against Liverpool the other week, has apparently been training with the first team. What can Bielsa tell us about his qualities?

“Mullen is a player who is within the cycle of the U23s.”

Okay!

And amid all the Telegraph’s reporting about a shortlist to replace him if he doesn’t stay next season, and acknowledging that everyone knows by now that Bielsa will say now is not the time to discuss it, can Bielsa say anything about his plans for next season?

“It’s not a subject which we should talk about in this moment.”

To be fair’s Sky’s reporter got exactly what they asked for in that answer. I think this also explains some of Bielsa’s moodiness in press conferences from time to time. He doesn’t take these sessions one by one, he assumes the information he is giving in them accumulates. He explained ages ago why he prefers to sign one year contracts and not discuss the next season until the current one is finished, so if people are sincere about wanting to know what he thinks, they only have to check the record for his previous answers. If journalists are asking the same things again, it can only be because they either didn’t believe his previous answers, or are searching for something controversial. Bielsa doesn’t give much reward to repeat questioning.

He was ahead of the curve on the first question about injuries, not waiting for Adam Pope’s query to be translated before telling what he knew, which didn’t sound good for Leo Hjelde:

“Kalvin [Phillips] and [Liam] Cooper continue their normal processes. The objective is that they get to March available. The medical estimate was twelve weeks and that hasn’t changed. [Stuart] Dallas is recovering, he is not ruled out for Sunday’s game. Hjelde has an injury in his knee, and if the process of the next three weeks is effective he would be available in that term. But it could happen that he may not recover in those twenty days, which would result in him having to have surgery.”

He added later that Pat Bamford is still having the same problem with his painful foot, but apparently one item from the Sunday section was that Junior Firpo could play.

There were some team selection questions that didn’t elicit much information — after admitting that using Mateusz Klich as a defensive midfielder at Everton was a mistake, has Bielsa decided if Adam Forshaw or Stuart Dallas might play in midfield instead of him? “No, I haven’t decided on the formation yet.” I expect this also has to do with the fan who wrote to tell him not to keep naming the starting eleven back in the Championship. Yet people keep asking him to!

The other question on this was about the criticism Tyler Roberts has been getting, and why he keeps getting in the team ahead of Joe Gelhardt. Bielsa’s answer seems to come down to him being aware of what’s being said, that fans are entitled to base their opinions on how they feel about the performances they see, but that ultimately the responsibility — and therefore blame when needed — for picking the team is on Bielsa, and he doesn’t know how he can make that any clearer:

“I see the same things that the fans see. I think what they ask of him [Roberts] is always justified. [Their opinions] are based on evaluating a player that plays, and rating him. If the rating is not positive, they demand another option. That’s what happened with Bamford, that’s what happened with James, with Rodrigo at the time and now with Tyler. So I have to accept the complaints, but of course I always subject myself to external evaluation, and I am always self-critical. But obviously it’s not enough and I need to take more responsibility than I did before. I can’t imagine how to do it.”

Maybe he could make it clearer by explaining what Roberts is or isn’t doing in training, or what Gelhardt is or isn’t doing in training, that makes him decide to pick one over the other. But that wasn’t the question asked, and when this sort of thing has come up in the past, Bielsa has usually gone with the same line of saying he decides what he decides and people are entitled to disagree.

The great debate of January 2020, after Eddie Nketiah had left and before Jean-Kevin Augustin arrived, was about why Ryan Edmondson wasn’t getting a chance ahead of Bamford. Back then, Bielsa said:

“Thirty-five players are working with us and we look at every one of them, after [that] I choose what I think are the best players. Of course, [Edmondson] has limits and he recognises them. Maybe Edmondson is the best goalscorer on the team, and he should play instead of Bamford, and I am wrong. But what everybody has to know, and not doubt, everything Edmondson does in training and matches, I am looking at it. I watch all of Edmondson’s matches, and I’m always watching his effort and everything he does. After that I evaluate and I take decisions. Maybe they are wrong.”

He hasn’t always stonewalled with his reasoning, though. Before that, in October, it was Nketiah versus Bamford, and Bielsa went into more detail about what he wanted, and even about why the Arsenal loanee wasn’t doing it, because of the way the Gunners brung him up:

“We don’t have the players who win the match themselves. Big teams, like Arsenal, they have a lot of players that can win a match with one play. This is natural, [the way] Nketiah has developed in this school. He has all the resources, skills, to resolve the needs of scoring a goal. But we need to build the chance at goal.”

“Bamford is missing chances and Nketiah is scoring. But there is a fact [that] before you score a goal, you [have to] build the situation that allows the chance to score. Bamford or Nketiah — which player do you think ran more? [the assembled journalists say Bamford] No, Nketiah. You know why? Bamford ran for the needs of the team. Nketiah ran just to try and score.

“The metres that Bamford ran were true to the team. And Nketiah puts these metres in to finish the action. It’s natural [for him to do this].

“What I’m looking for is to achieve that Eddie feels the needs of the team, and that he understands if he doesn’t put the metres in [for] both things, he is going to have less chances to score.”

Even that came with this caveat, though, which helps explain why such outbursts of public analysis from Bielsa are rare:

“After saying that, I am not 100% sure what I’m saying. Football is football. We are forced to analyse. We are forced to take conclusions. But if the conclusion we take analyses where we are [i.e. dictates results], football would not be the first sport in the world.

“If you give me the option to choose between my way to analyse, and free football, I prefer free football. I don’t prefer the football I build in my mind. Football is about players [not analysis]. Be careful.”

In other words — and this was when Diego Flores was struggling with the translations — Bielsa can only use analysis to prepare his team, but he knows its limits, how easily analysis can be proven wrong by the players, the game, the sport. To that end, he prefers to say, ‘It’s my decision, my responsibility’ rather than give too much credence to analysis that can, with the stroke of a boot or the bounce of a ball, be proven wrong. Or right, in the cases of Bamford versus Nketiah and Edmondson.

Back to the present day. Although Bielsa wouldn’t get drawn into discussing ‘the state Manchester United are currently in’, and what a leading question that was, your honour, or their recent use of high pressing under Ralf Rangnick — “There are differences between the two styles [Solskjaer vs Rangnick] and this comment that you make [about pressing] is the most salient” — there were hints that a Wilkinson-style focus on the big match ahead was at the back of his reticence. Will he be explaining to the players how big this game is, or is that up to people like Kalvin Phillips?

“Well, I think players generally imagine the type of game they’re going to face.”

He won’t compare it to any other ‘classic’ matches — “it’s all about the times, when the game is played, different opponents” — but he knows it’s important to the fans, especially after our two games at Old Trafford since promotion. “Defeats against those classic opponents are not the same as others.” Most importantly, he won’t be asking the fans for anything in the game. That’s what Bielsa was asked: ‘What would you expect from the fans, what would you like from them?’

“Well, it’s not [about] what I would like, but that the fans will always, have always, supported the team unconditionally. It’s hard to imagine support beyond what we’ve already received, but if the presence of a classic rival increases the enthusiasm, it’s going to be beautiful to watch. And of course we think much more about what we have to give to the public, than what we are going to get from them.”

So let’s get on with it, as a great manager once said.