Marcelo Bielsa

[1964white]

You are one that is regularly throwing the grenades. I simply point out that the situation that led to our poor season was down to a lot more than Bielsa.

Perhaps you should change If folk throw grenades, I feel obliged to reply. to when I throw grenades people shouldn't feel obliged to reply

No I'm not.

[Mick Jones shoulder]

Fucksake.
Our defensive frailties were evident from the word go and were discussed. Going forward, splendid for the majority of Bielsa's tenure..

[weasel]

Fucksake.
Our defensive frailties were evident from the word go and were discussed. Going forward, splendid for the majority of Bielsa's tenure..

Goes hand in hand a bit. You can't have the great attacking without sacrificing some defensive stability - unless you're like Man City and have players who give the ball away far less and can spend £50m+ on each defender so you get the worlds best defenders that can also play with the ball at their feet.

[Kennyb41]

Stop it Weasel, they expected him to keep performing miracles not being happy with couple he'd already done.

They don't get 'it'

You either set up like big Sam for the 4 games we got battered (unlimited reasons for) or show him the door

Twas all Berts fault for not putting 10 behind the ball and only getting beat 1 or 2-0

[Mick Jones shoulder]

Now I remember why I don't visit often

[Cjay]

It is telling that no one saw the man marking system as an issue in the first 3 years.

I did

Never was keen on it.

[weasel]

Stop it Weasel, they expected him to keep performing miracles not being happy with couple he'd already done.

They don't get 'it'

You either set up like big Sam for the 4 games we got battered (unlimited reasons for) or show him the door

Twas all Berts fault for not putting 10 behind the ball and only getting beat 1 or 2-0

Sorry Kenneth forgive me I was being a postle.

[Mick Jones shoulder]

I did

Never was keen on it.

Unfortunately the guy running the show thought it was good cjay.
And according to some replies attacking and defending are mutually exclusive

[weasel]

And according to some replies attacking and defending are mutually exclusive

They aren't mutually exclusive but the more you commit to attack then the more vulnerable you are defensively.

If we take Bielsa and George Grahas as two polar opposites then under GG the system was all about defence and it worked well for him when he had someone like Alan Smith (the Arsenal striker not the Leeds/MU one), Ian Wright or Jimmy Floyd Haselbaink up top and then the rest of the team primarily defended. It worked because the striker was good enough to take a high percentage of the few chances that came his way and the rest of the team made it very hard for the opposition to score - hence the song 1-0 to the Arsenal. The GG system seeing the team win 1-0 by taking 1 of the 3 or 4 chances created and the opposition not taking 1 of their couple of chances being taken. The team also benefitting from having a very good goalkeeper (Seaman at Arsenal and Martyn at Leeds).


Bielsa's way was the opposite with just about every player having license to get forward. The plan being that whilst the opposition might get 10 chances to score we'd get more chances to score. If both teams took the same percentages of chances then you would expect to win a lot of matches. As such if you go for the all out attacking and create 20 chances in a match then you wouldn't usually limit the opposition to just a couple of chances (although we did quite a few times in the championship a memorable game being against Derby in season 2 where they didn't have a single touch of the ball on our penalty area for over 60 minutes but we ended up drawing 1-1 despite having something like 20 chances to Derby's 1 or 2. Where the system falls down is if the team doesn't take a high enough percentage of the chances created and that was generally our achilles heel. This season that was highlighted even more due to the absence of our striker for the majority of the season. The overll system was working, just as well as it had in previous seasons but we found ourselves converting less of our chances and the opposition converting a higher percentage - a classic example being Bielsa's last match in charge where we lost 4-0 to Tottenham despite creating more chances (and if memory serves Dallas missed an open goal and we hit the post twice).

So whilst attacking and defending aren't mutually exclusive the more you commit to attacking then the more you leave yourself vulnerable defensively. And the main problem comes when the quality of the side is far inferior to the opposition. As such if you don't have the quality to take your chances you will get punished - a great example was the cup tie v Arsenal when we were inthe championship where we played them off the pitch in the first half and should have been 3 or 4 goals in front. We didn't take our chances and Arsenal won. At some point the quality of the side needs to improve, rather than changing the style of play, and this is what didn't happen and in fact rather than being improved it was actually weaker than it had been due to the key injuries to PB and KP.

[CHAPELALLMAN]

Now I remember why I don't visit often

Join the club - sick of it.

I dipped in again to see the latest, and am dipping out again pronto...Some of the stuff written on here smacks of some kind of OCD complex.

[Mick Jones shoulder]

Which includes stating the bloody obvious.
Must dash

[Cjay]

Not wanting to rehash old ground.

The Bielsa we will create more chances than you falls down as Weasel says if you don't take a High proportion of your chances.

We were never prolific under Bielsa and missed tons of chances becausethe players weren't good enough. A large part of that was because under Bielsa we prioritised running and off the ball stats over attacking stats in attacking players (see James, Rodrigo etc).

You can't have it both ways.

You can't buy players in attacking positions because they run a lot when it's well know the end product lacks (as was well known with the aforementioned pair) and then bemoan the amount of missed chances.

Maybe we felt that law of averages would go in our favour but fundamentally a quality finisher will score more of his 1 of 2 chances than a Dan James type will of his 1 of 3.

That imo was the flaw.

The tactical plan fundamentally fell down because of the type if players used to carry it out.

We needed runners and Bielsa wanted runners because of his style but that meant we sacrificed end product which meant we missed more chances which eventually meant we lost more games anyway.

What imo should have happened is we needed to step away from the headless chicken signings and signed more quality and then trained them into runners.

You can't teach end product.

You can improve fitness.

Anyhow that was my last bit on the subject until MB gets linked to a new job.

Wonder where he will go?

International?
Back to Newells?

[weasel]

I dipped in again to see the latest, and am dipping out again pronto...Some of the stuff written on here smacks of some kind of OCD complex.

So you dip into a thread with the title Re: Marcelo Bielsa and expected to see what a discussion of how long you can keep a doughnut before it goes stale?

[VinnysTattoo]

I don’t get why people get upset when we discuss Bielsa.

It’s an emotive subject based on a football coach that has brought joy to all Leeds fans, but as in all managerial appointments, it came to an end.

As fans we will always have differing opinions on all players and managers and it doesn’t stop when they leave.

Bielsa especially creates a lot of talk just because the way he plays the game. Why he ultimately failed at Leeds will be a subject that will probably never have a finite conclusion.

For me I enjoy the differing points of view.

[Rook]

So you dip into a thread with the title Re: Marcelo Bielsa and expected to see what a discussion of how long you can keep a doughnut before it goes stale?

[Kennyb41]

So you dip into a thread with the title Re: Marcelo Bielsa and expected to see what a discussion of how long you can keep a doughnut before it goes stale?

Exactly Weasel, they are fcking unbelievable, they get pissed off talking about him then run to the thread bearing his name !!!

They are s**tting themselves Leeds and them have gone and shot themselves in the foot.

Like Pep said, he'd still be in the Championship, no greater praise indeed.

Cjay you are destined for relegation battles and mediocrity at best now, your dreams of top 6 have vanished, Bert given time would've had us right up there, if people were too thick to see what he was about and the problems he was facing for his system, well, they really shouldn't be watching football.

Must dash.

[Overman]

Exactly Weasel, they are fcking unbelievable, they get pissed off talking about him then run to the thread bearing his name !!!

They are s**tting themselves Leeds and them have gone and shot themselves in the foot.

Like Pep said, he'd still be in the Championship, no greater praise indeed.

Cjay you are destined for relegation battles and mediocrity at best now, your dreams of top 6 have vanished, Bert given time would've had us right up there, if people were too thick to see what he was about and the problems he was facing for his system, well, they really shouldn't be watching football.

Must dash.

Blah, blah, blah blah, and repeat, blah, blah, blah. blah.

[Kennyb41]

I thought you had me on ignore, so much for that little old chestnut huh, like i've said umpteen times, ALL the people that say they've put someone on ignore are talking out their anus, well known fact that is.

More garbage, neverending, now get off our beloved thread.

Must dash.

[Kennyb41]

Are you thick ?

[weasel]

Blah, blah, blah blah, and repeat, blah, blah, blah. blah.

If you don't want to talk about Bielsa or read about Bielsa why come onto this thread? 64 did a great job by moving threads onto this dedicated page so people don't need to see Bielsa related posts on several other threads, yes occasionally his name might crop up on another thread but chances are if you click onto this thread it will be about Bielsa.

Going blah blah blah is extremely childish aespecially considering that the Bielsa out mob repeat the same thing time and time again such as comparing Bielsa's last few games in charge to Marsch's first few games in charge or moaning about man marking etc.