Former Leeds United star and current Sky Sports pundit David Prutton has stated that Marcelo Bielsa will not let his style of play be altered even if the club’s suffer a poor run of form this season.
The Argentine manager has been crucial to the club’s success this season, with his players revealing just how hard he is working them on the training ground in order to garner the results on the pitch, and they are reaping the rewards with a push at the top of the Championship.
With an attacking brand of football at Elland Road, Prutton states that the manager is not going to change his approach even if if results start to drop off.
He told the Yorkshire Evening Post: “Bielsa has made his feelings known about how important it is to play with style and I think it is a wonderfully altruistic way of looking at it. I think sometimes there is the realism of what football management is. He is a manager and he knows that results are paramount.
“It will be intriguing to see if Leeds go through a sticky patch where it becomes more about results than style if that is compromised. That’s when you see if someone really does stick to their principles or not. But you get the sense that Bielsa is a very principled football coach and he probably would stick to that.
“For someone like Bielsa to almost see himself being a trustee or a guardian of something like that is a wonderful thing to hear and long may it continue with Leeds.”
Opinion
Leeds fans are absolutely loving the sort of football put on show week in, week out by the Whites and the club are being rewarded with fine results in the Championship as they look to put the difficulties of last season behind them. Bielsa is the man leading the charge and it is clear that Leeds would likely be floundering once again without him at the helm. However, managers need to know when change needs to be applied in order for the success of the team, and Prutton’s verdict on Bielsa being a stickler for his own methods might not be what the club need moving forward. It was what brought Thomas Christiansen into trouble last season, as he refused to waver from his style of football and team selection despite results going against him, and an adaptability is crucial to ensuring prolonged success. Bielsa has been in the game long enough to realise that, and so he might well prove Prutton wrong should push come to shove.