BIELSA HAS TO DECIDE

LEEDS have been struggling this season, and in a way I’m not surprised.

I’ve always wondered if Marcelo Bielsa’s intensity would eventually prove too much for their players, and we’d see a little bit of what people casually label as ‘burnout’.

I don’t believe that as such, and I don’t think the Leeds players have downed tools either. But what I do think, is that a bit of fatigue sets in mentally, as much as anything.

When training is as intense as that, day in day out for months and years, then the players will weary of it, they will question whether they can do the same thing every single day.

If you look at Bielsa (below), he’s never at any club for long. In fact, the three and a half years he’s now been in Yorkshire is by far the longest spell he’s had anywhere.

That tells you something. There’s no doubt this

Leeds team are fitter than a butcher’s dog, but that intensity every day takes its toll, and maybe you can see it in their performances now.

They’ve missed some important players, perhaps because they’ve been overstretched. And their methods aren’t quite so effective, maybe because they don’t quite reach the same levels of intensity.

It’s clear Bielsa has a shelf life at a club. If his methods start to stall, he moves on.

With other managers, and I’ve played for a few, they get just rid of the players and bring in new ones to continue with the same methods.

Will Bielsa stay and change personnel, will he move on, or will he adapt his famously rigid methods? As a manager myself, I’m fascinated to see what his next move will be.