Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds are incredible to watch - but a good loser is still a loser
Bielsa's side got so much praise for the manner of their 6-2 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford, but it just fed in to the media myth around the manager
Former Liverpool and England striker now Mirror columnist
Sorry folks, but after hearing Martin Tyler be almost breathless in his praise of Leeds United for 90 minutes during their hammering by Manchester United, I was left wondering did I read the scoreline correctly?
At one stage he actually made out they were enjoying it. No they weren’t!
Nobody enjoys losing 6-2, that’s nonsense!
It doesn’t matter if it’s a Sunday league game or a World Cup Final. It also made me realise how much we in the media create myths.
Marcelo Bielsa’s statistics as a club manager are pretty average. He’s won two Clausuras and one Apertura title in Argentina and got Leeds up from the Championship.
Those are not the statistics of a great manager and to be a great manager, you’ve got to win the biggest trophies, otherwise what is the point of being competitive?
He’s a good manager who has a very open and expansive idea about how the game should be played but he has an Achilles heel in the Premier League, which is his inability to defend.
You cannot concede 30 goals in 14 games, and more than three goals six times. I don’t care if you score 100 goals at the other end, 30 goals in the Premier League after 14 games is poor.
They’re on course to concede 100 goals over their 38 Premier League games. It’s madness that you could categorise someone as one of the best three managers on the planet, as FIFA did when they shortlisted him for their coach of the year award, if you’re heading towards 100 goals conceded over a season.
FIFA shortlisted him as one of the best coaches in the world because he won promotion from the Championship.
Sean Dyche, Ian Holloway and David Wagner got promoted to the Premier League on small budgets, so do we put them in too?
We don’t because that’s not the sole criteria.
The criteria FIFA used is he’s the influencer for several managers who have gone on to be some of the best in the world, like Pep Guardiola.
It’s that simple.
Like Pep , he’s a manager you can’t criticise because football hipsters will tell you that he’s been so instrumental in changing the sport that criticising him is heresy.
I just think an adequate description of Bielsa is that he has a footballing philosophy which is open and entertaining, which is to be lauded.
At the front end, they can create chances and score goals and if his style was getting result after result after result would put him in the A-category bracket.
But when you look at Bielsa at the minute, you have to say he is middling.
As good as they are at the top of the pitch, you have to take into account how bad they are at the back.
If they continue in this vein for the rest of the campaign, Bielsa in his first season in the Premier League will have had an average season and be nowhere near justifying the hype he is getting.
Do you agree with Stan? Have your say in the comments below
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