Leeds United journalist Jon Mackenzie has been sharing some insight into how Marcelo Bielsa prepares for matches.
This comes after Mackenzie recently made a guest appearance on the Birmingham Mail’s Claret & Blue Podcast to reflect on the Yorkshire club’s 3-0 win over Aston Villa on Friday night.
On the topic of Bielsa and how he prepares his team for their matches and the Villa match in particular, Mackenzie had this to say on the matter.
He said: “He’s very, very heavy on the prep side of things and obviously, everyone knows with the Spygate incident that he is obsessive in his preparation in terms of trying to work out what it is that the opponents will do.
“They’ll be working a few weeks in advance in terms of the video analysis. They’ll have watched every game Villa played this season, obviously, probably quite a lot of what they played over the summer and before the summer, etc, so they’ll have a really good sense of what is going on in terms of the tactical tweaks that Dean Smith could make. They will put in more effort than they need to, Bielsa is obsessive and he admits this.”
The Argentine was appointed as Leeds boss back in July 2018. Since then, Bielsa has taken charge of 107 games for Leeds in which they have won 59, drawn 18 and lost 30 (per Transfermarkt).
The Spygate incident, that Mackenzie mentioned in the podcast, came back in February 2019 when the club were fined £200k after a member of Leeds’ staff was found ‘acting suspiciously’ outside Derby County’s training ground after being sent there by Bielsa to watch them train.
So far this season, Leeds have had a mixed start to their 2020/21 Premier League campaign having won three of their opening six league fixtures, drawing one and losing two along the way (per BBC Sport).
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TIF Thoughts on Mackenzie’s comments on Bielsa…
It’s clear from what Mackenzie had to say in the podcast that Bielsa and his management team are very thorough with their preparations for matches.
Given how the club managed to finish at the top of the table in the Championship last season with 93 points, it’s safe to say that Bielsa’s preparations would have been a massive help for them in their promotion-winning campaign.