Former Bristol Rovers manager Darrell Clarke has dismissed the background work and analysis done by Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa in an interview with This Football Life.
Clarke, who left Bristol Rovers in December, was offered the Leeds job by Massimo Cellino in 2016, but he turned it down to sign a new deal with Rovers.
Leeds ended up getting Garry Monk in instead. Now Clarke has said that foreign managers are to blame for top homegrown managers not landing the big jobs and dismissed what Bielsa is doing at Leeds.
“I think there are a lot of very, very talented British managers around, but in this country foreign managers are put on a massive pedestal and get a lot of the top jobs over here,” Clarke said.
“The Leeds United manager was doing his Powerpoint presentation the other week and everyone’s going ‘that’s amazing’. Well, no, it’s not. It’s what’s being done up and down the country in most changing rooms, it’s just we haven’t done a presentation. I can put you a Powerpoint presentation and you’ll be thinking ‘wow, what a man’. It’s no re-invention of the wheel.
“Bielsa said he’d watched 50 odd Leeds games, but any other manager going to a different country would be doing exactly the same. You’d be getting that input and then adjusting your methods.
Asked about the Leeds job, he said, “It wasn’t for me. People might look at it and say ‘you had the opportunity to manage Leeds’, but it’s about having opportunities at the right times.
“A lot of managers and coaches speak to me and say I was crazy for not taking that, but for me it was the right decision and I don’t look back on it as a regret.”
OPINION
We’ve heard this a few times from various people after Bielsa’s Powerpoint presentation, which was rightly lauded by pundits in the game. The funniest was Dean Saunders who said he’d done the same and then revealed he’d got a couple of students in to watch a few games. Why other managers feel so threatened by Bielsa is anyone’s guess. We imagine that Clarke, despite saying he doesn’t regret turning down the Leeds job, is now watching where the club is going and thinking ‘that could be me’. It’s fair to say that very few other managers are as obsessed with football as Bielsa. He had sleeping quarters installed at Thorp Arch and watches almost every Under-23s game. Clrake offered no praise towards Bielsa about what he’s done at Leeds and it just comes across as sour grapes. If he can get Leeds up to the Premier League for their centenary year then he’ll rightly go down as a club legend.