Leeds United playmaker Samuel Saiz lagged “a mile behind” in the club’s pre-season sprints at their training headquarters, according to Phil Hay.
The Yorkshire Evening Post correspondent used the example of the Spaniard’s lack of intensity and fitness in last summer’s drills as an example of something the club might have been eager to shield from the public.
Hay explained how the goings-ons behind the fences, trees and bushes at Thorp Arch is something Leeds would have wanted to keep quiet at that point in his verdict of the spy scandal that has engulfed the club in recent days.
OPINION
It is perhaps not a surprise that Saiz’s conditioning was several notches below those of his teammates who soon got up to speed with the brutal demands of Marcelo Bielsa and his staff in their first pre-season. The big-name Spaniard plays like an old-school attacker, relying upon quick feet and a sharp brain rather than turns of speed or intense bursts up and down the field. He has subsequently left the club for Getafe, although his loan runs until the end of the season and he could still return to Leeds if it does not work out. He remains registered on their books. Despite his iffy fitness and questionable desire to do the hard yards, Saiz clearly knuckled down, as he was a mainstay of the starting XI for the opening months of the season as Leeds took the Championship by storm under Bielsa. The attacker then suffered the dip that preceded his exit, but he clearly did something right to get into shape, or the Argentine would not have selected him.