Bradford manager Gary Bowyer has said that his Leeds counterpart Marcelo Bielsa would have been within his rights to tell Aston Villa to “get lost” when they asked him to let their side equalise.
The game exploded when Leeds scored a goal with an Aston Villa player down injured and after a brawl on the pitch and some instructions from the Villa bench, Bielsa demanded his team let the Villa players walk through them to equalise.
Only Pontus Jansson showed an dissatisfaction with the decision.
However, BBC journalist Adam Pope quoted Bowyer as saying, “You have to take your hat off to the Leeds manager for what he did. He could’ve easily said ‘I’m going for automatic promotion or the play-offs so you can get lost.’ But he didn’t. Fair play to him.”
Bradford City boss Gary Bowyer asked about Bielsa allowing Villa to score: “You have to take your hat off to the #lufc manager for what he did. He could’ve easily said ‘I’m going for automatic promotion or the play-offs’ so you can get lost’. But he didn’t. Fair play to him.”
— Adam Pope (@apopey) May 2, 2019
OPINION
No rules were broken and it’s the referee’s job to stop play if a player is injured. He didn’t do that and regardless of whether the Aston Villa players had done it earlier (they had actually put the ball out of play when a Leeds man was injured), there’s no obligation for the team they’re playing to do the same. The Villa players acted aggressively, as did John Terry and Dean Smith on the sidelines, and Bielsa could easily have enflamed the situation by refusing to let a goal back. That would have created so much bad blood in an already tense situation that it’s hard to argue that he didn’t do the right thing. However, it’s right that he’s praised by people for what he did. He’s taken a lot of flack this season after spygate and this showed him, Leeds and the game of football in a really good light.