Alan Pardew appears to be a fan of the style of football that Leeds United and Norwich have used in the Championship this season.
Although the Whites have dropped out of the top-two, Marcelo Bielsa has overseen one of the best seasons at Elland Road in well over a decade with his easy-on-the-eye and energetic style blowing some of his opponents away.
Former West Brom and Newcastle manager Pardew has noticed a shift in style of clubs in the Championship and has suggested that Leeds and Norwich have been good examples of that this season.
“It’s not Premier League Two yet but when you look at the teams who are playing football, like Leeds and Norwich, then it’s ‘wow’,” Pardew told the Telegraph.
“That isn’t what used to get you out of the Championship five years ago. Then it was powerful, big teams who scored a lot of goals from set-pieces and were super-tight defensively. These teams are not like that. They are trying to play through you, out-manoeuvre you and that’s brilliant. That’s where we all want it to go.
“It felt like defensive football was going to ruin the game but now we can’t play more football than we do and at all levels – League One, League Two also. I look at the Cowley brothers at Lincoln and think, ‘what a job they’ve done’. If I was a technical director I’d be getting those two, for sure.”
OPINION
Bielsa has done wonders for Leeds this season and there is no way that they would be where they are in the table if Andrea Radrizzani and Victor Orta did not hire the Argentine to succeed Paul Heckingbottom. Bielsa has only made small changes to the playing squad at Elland Road yet they are third in the table and probably the favourites to win the play-offs if they miss out on a spot in the top-two. Bielsa’s style of play definitely has it’s drawbacks though because Leeds have had an unnatural amount of injuries this season. Ezgjan Alioksi and Barry Douglas are out for the rest of the season while pretty much every single outfield player has had a spell on the sidelines this term. Leeds have been so good this season, as Pardew says, so it would be a shame if they were to miss out on promotion to the Premier League just because they have started to unravel at the worst possible time.