Gary Neville has stirred the pot at Leeds with recent comments he made about their manager, Marcelo Bielsa.
Neville was talking on Stan Collymore’s The Last Word podcast when he said that translation issues could hinder Bielsa at the club as they did when the Sky pundit was manager at Valencia.
“I couldn’t communicate to the players and we talk for a living,” Neville said.
“Every team talk was 50 minutes long because it had to be translated by the person next to me. If you see Bielsa’s interviews, they’re hard to watch too.
“I had four Spanish lessons a week, I was getting up at six in the morning, they thought I was crazy, to basically do an hour and a half of Spanish. All the team meetings were in Spanish… they obviously needed a translator for me but I worked really hard.”
Bielsa conducts his press conferences through a translator but Leeds fans have ridiculed the idea that this could cause problems with the players.
Here are the best reactions from Leeds fans:
Nowt to do with the fact gary neville is shite then? Only got the job cause his mate owns Valencia. Gary its not all about you.
— Andy Loone ???????? (@Looneysback) September 4, 2019
Yeah, but Bielsa is winning games. Gary couldn’t win Hook-a-Duck at a fairground.
— ManicStreetTeacher (@365DaysofWhine) September 3, 2019
Neville’s time at Valencia was short-lived after he was sacked following a string of bad results after less than four months in charge of the Spanish club.
He didn’t win a match for 10 games and was sacked after winning three of his 16 games in charge.
It would take a pretty strong case of revisionism to blame that on language problems and Leeds fans ridiculed Neville for comparing himself to Bielsa.
Complete and utter hogwash
— Richard Lang (@richardlang05) September 3, 2019
I’ve watched and enjoyed more of Bielsas interviews than any manager we’ve ever had, I’m not sure I’d agree that they are “hard to watch” ????
— ???????????????????? (@JamWhipp) September 3, 2019
@GNev2 most of the time you speak a lot of sense but every now & then you have a blip. Comparing your situation to Bielsa’s situation is different. Bielsa understands English & can speak it his just not very confident in doing so. His into his second season no difficulties.
— Adam Ross (@rossi_on) September 3, 2019
Would it be better if Bielsa could speak fluent English? Undoubtedly, but we’ve watched plenty of his press conferences and they’re generally very detailed and entertaining.
Bielsa doesn’t hold back and has been known to talk for up to an hour in front of journalists.
During the spygate scandal, he held an open session with journalists where he detailed his match preparations at Leeds and he impressed pundits such as Gary Lineker.
Bielsa really doesn’t seem to have a problem getting his points across.
I sort of love Bielsa. “I observed all the rivals we played against and watched the training sessions of all our opponents before we played against them” ?
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) January 16, 2019
Bielsa ball is the universal language every footballer understands
— Mark Ramm (@LufcRammy) September 3, 2019
Bielsa took his Leeds side to within a whisker of promotion last season and has currently lost just one game this season.
They’re dominating possession in games, playing thrilling, fast, attacking football, and everyone seems to be on the same page, as evidenced in this short video clip from last season.
https://twitter.com/lufc_goals/status/1101602834250792963
It doesn’t appear that Bielsa is having any problems communicating with his players the way Leeds are currently playing football.
He says about a manager who’s managed in half a dozen countries, in which they speak three different languages in which time he’s proved time and again to improve their teams, players and support…
— Dean (@DeanoNet) September 3, 2019
Odd comparison – Neville was a total failure at Valencia and lasted a few weeks. Bielsa is already in his second season and took a mid table team to within a whisker of promotion at first attempt. Poor from @GNev2 ????
— Pete (@35Pete3) September 3, 2019