Are Leeds United falling apart again? How the Bielsa revolution ground to a halt

GRIFFIN PARK, LONDON — Maybe it shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise that Leeds were beaten at Griffin Park. Despite the fact they started the day 3rd in the Championship, with Brentford 15th, neither form nor history favoured the visitors.

Brentford had not lost to Leeds at home in nine games stretching back to 1950 and, despite their mid-table status, Thomas Frank’s side have been generally strong on home turf this season. Leeds, meanwhile, were coming off the back of a demoralising defeat to 10-man Wigan which allowed Sheffield United to climb above them into second and significantly improve their own chances of automatic promotion.

More surprising than the result itself – a 2-0 home win sealed by the prolific Neal Maupay and resurgent former Barcelona and Liverpool youngster Sergi Canos – was the nature of Leeds’ defeat. There was little sign of the Leeds side which have been so lauded under Marcelo Bielsa this season. Bielsa, the tactical savant who has heavily influenced Pep Guardiola, Mauricio Pochettino and Diego Simeone, to name but a few, is famed for his aggressive press, quick transitions and flexible, fluid attack. None were really in evidence in west London, with Leeds too passive, sluggish in their decision making and less intense than their opponents all across the pitch.

Serenaded by the sound of “Leeds, Leeds are falling apart again” from three sides of the ground – Joy Division bassist Peter Hook is a Manchester United fan, so we can assume he would approve – the visitors trudged off despondent with at least one player, Pablo Hernandez, in tears. Their second top scorer for the season, he had missed several chances and, along with the rest of Leeds’ attackers, seemed to be labouring under the burden of responsibility. After the match, Bielsa lamented Leeds’ efficiency in front of goal as the defining shortcoming of their season. “We had offensive actions but without efficiency,” he said. “This is the summary of our season.”

History repeating itself?

Leeds are not a club associated with good luck, or at least not in their modern history. Famously, the phrase “doing a Leeds” – synonymous with clubs who overspend to the point of financial crisis and plummet down the leagues as a result – has its own, rather extensive, Wikipedia page. Since the high of reaching the 2001 Champions League semi-final was followed by the low of relegation from the Premier League three years later, Leeds have spent 14 full seasons outside the top flight. There have been several near misses in the interim, the most recent being the 2016-17 season under Garry Monk when Leeds went third in the Championship in late January only to fall away to seventh, missing out on a play-off spot.

Read more: Will Leeds United’s form implode – or is ‘Bielsa burnout’ just a myth? An investigation

Top of the table for much of the campaign, including a long spell between December and February, Bielsa’s Leeds now look as if they will have to contest the play-offs themselves. When things go wrong for Bielsa towards the end of the season people inevitably start talking about “Bielsa burnout“, supposedly the result of his intensive training methods and the heightened fatigue caused by his pressing game. Assessments of “Bielsa burnout” range from credible theory to lazy cliche and complete myth, though Leeds undeniably looked heavy-legged at Griffin Park. There are doubtless other factors at play in their shaky recent form, however.

Bielsa has been credited with getting more out of this Leeds squad than anyone thought possible, transforming a group which plodded to 13th last season into passable Bielsistas. Though he has made a few key additions in the form of Patrick Bamford, Barry Douglas and Kiko Casilla – along with Manchester City youngster Jack Harrison on loan – the majority of his first-team regulars were unexceptional performers last term. Mateusz Klich, Pontus Jansson, Kemar Roofe, Kalvin Phillips, Hernandez: the list of players who have markedly improved under Bielsa’s guidance goes on.

While some of those players have doubtless come into their own this season, there is also a sense that Leeds are outperforming their natural level as a collective. Bielsa hinted at it after the Brentford defeat when he said: “This team has hidden many limits with huge effort. With personality, and by being demanding. Each player has played very close to his maximum during many games.” Bielsa’s methods, so focused on maximising collective success, have taken Leeds a long way, but their performance against Brentford felt like a reversion to type; a throwback to Leeds performances of seasons past. Bielsa will have to hope that reversion is an outlier to his management rather than an inexorable return to the norm.

Then there are Leeds’ opponents, who deserve credit as much as they deserve criticism. Wigan, struggling against relegation, gave a hugely motivated performance to win at Elland Road despite having Cedric Kipre wrongly sent off after 14 minutes. Brentford, liberated by mid-table safety, played with a freedom which Leeds could only dream about at Griffin Park. Psychology must also come into it, with Leeds’ battle for automatic promotion against Daniel Farke’s title chasers at Norwich and Chris Wilder’s relentless Sheffield United putting them under enormous mental strain.

Long-awaited return

Bielsa is a keen student of history, citing Leeds’ standing in the game as one of his main reasons for taking the job last summer. He will be well aware of just how desperate fans are for the club to return to where they, along with much of the football establishment, think it belongs. That is not to mention the financial rewards on offer in the Premier League and the pressure on Bielsa from above to strike gold. Those same pressures must weigh heavy on his players, many of whom know that their careers could be defined by what happens between now and the end of the campaign.

Read more: How Marcelo Bielsa taught Frank Lampard and all of English football a lesson

With Sheffield United beating Hull on Monday and moving three points clear in second, Leeds now have only the slimmest chance of automatic promotion. Wilder’s side have a much superior goal difference and, with two games left, anything other than two wins for Leeds and a combination of draws and defeats for their rivals will do. The Blades play rock-bottom Ipswich at the weekend, making that scenario seem even less likely. That leaves Leeds facing the play-offs, where as the third-placed side in the Championship they would play the team who finishes sixth.

Currently that looks likely to be Derby County, which would see a re-run of what we might dub the 007 Clasico. After “Spygate” provided the undisputed highlight of the Championship season in the form of Bielsa giving an in-depth PowerPoint on Frank Lampard’s tactics to the assembled media, the two clubs were destined to meet again and, for the neutral, nothing could be better. For Bielsa, however, overcoming the psychological setback of missing out on automatic promotion could prove to be his hardest task in west Yorkshire. A good start would be to mastermind wins against Aston Villa and Ipswich in the last two games of the standard season. Teams who go into the play-offs in uncertain form do not tend to do well.

The play-offs are a great leveller in one sense, like pressing the restart button on the past 10 months. While that could be hugely painful for Leeds after a season in which they have been so widely lauded and have considerably overperformed expectation, it could also serve as an opportunity to refresh after the difficulties of the last few games. Depending on how Bielsa plays it, this could actually be the perfect chance for Leeds to defy their reputation for collapsing in the face of adversity. If he fails, expect the sound of Joy Division to be louder than ever.