Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa compares his struggle to what he saw in Spurs match

Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa has claimed that Leeds United’s recent situation is comparable to Manchester City against Tottenham Hotspur.

Leeds are experiencing something of a difficult time having only won two of their last nine Championship matches.

Tottenham ended up 2-0 victors over Pep Guardiola’s side last weekend but the away side dominated proceedings for the majority of the encounter.

The Lilywhites defended deep in their own half and were aided when Oleksandr Zinchenko received his marching orders in the second half after committing two yellow card offences.

Jose Mourinho’s side made their numerical advantage count and emerged victors through goals from debutant Steven Bergwijn and Son Heung-min.

Leeds’ fate against Wigan was similar to that of City’s as they ended up on the losing side despite having most of the possession and creating many more chances than their opponents.

Bielsa, however, insisted that he wasn’t going to change Leeds into a defensive or a counter-attacking outfit just for the sake of getting results.

Speaking about the Whites’ defeat to Wigan, the Argentine coach told Leeds Live: “It’s like Manchester City. It’s not like we compare with Manchester City and big teams, but in the last match they missed eight chances and conceded two goals, they have the ball 70 per cent of the time, they conceded three chances and receive two goals so the way cannot be to say to City that they must have three chances.

“So for Leeds to win one match we have to play with our play in our own half, receive a lot of chances of the opponent, counter-attack three times in the match and wait in case we score two out of the three chances.

“I cannot imagine the football like that. And this doesn’t mean that it’s bad defending in our own half, or putting a lot of players in our own box, defend with ten, nine players.”

Spurs Web Opinion

This is perhaps where a pragmatist like Jose Mourinho disagrees philosophically with a purist like Marcelo Bielsa. While Mourinho is very much willing to alter his approach based on the tools he has at his disposal and is willing to sit back and frustrate better sides, the likes of Bielsa and Guardiola always demand that their sides play on the front foot. While Mourinho’s philosophy might not tie in with our club’s history, perhaps it is what we now need to win trophies.

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