Former Leeds United goalkeeper Paul Robinson, who also features as a pundit on Sky Sports, has expressed his confusion over Marcelo Bielsa’s decision to substitute Raphinha in their last Premier League game.
The Brazilian has arguably been Leeds’ best player this season.
Not only is he the club’s top scorer with eight goals to his name so far, but he also leads the team in a number of other departments, such as shots (2.9), key passes (2) and dribbles per game (2.3, as per WhoScored).
However, that wasn’t enough to save him from being taken off at half time in their defeat to Everton this past weekend, as he was replaced by Tyler Roberts with the Whites already 2-0 down at that stage of the game.
And speaking in an interview with MOTLeedsNews, Robinson claimed that even if Raphinha wasn’t at his best on the day, he still should have been kept on the pitch, whilst also claiming that Bielsa has made other strange tactical choices in the past few weeks.
He said: “If you take your best player off at half time, you find it difficult to understand, because a bad 45 minutes doesn’t make a player a bad player. You’re better off having a below-par Raphinha than someone coming off the bench. You can only presume that it was because of an injury.”
TIF Thoughts on Paul Robinson’s comments about Marcelo Bielsa, Raphinha and Leeds United…
Was that Raphinha's worst Leeds display?
Yes
No
Given the impact that Raphinha has on the Leeds United side, you can certainly see where Robinson is coming from with his remarks. If there was going to be anyone that could have sparked them into life that day, it probably would have been him.
And as Bielsa stated after the game, his decision was a tactical one rather than anything to do with any sort of injury, which does add to the confusion over the matter even more, claiming instead that he “decided that Daniel James should take over his role on the right and Tyler Roberts take over in the centre”.
Perhaps he was just doing it to preserve energy for their upcoming games where all three of Leeds’ opponents are currently fighting for a spot in Europe, and wanted to lose the battle to win the war by saving him for the bigger opponents.
Let’s just hope his decision works out in the end, or it could end up coming back to bite him if Leeds are dragged into a relegation battle.
In other news: BT pundit wowed by Leeds ‘talent’ who averages over 3x as many key passes as Phillips