Tidligere i år kom meldingen om at Daniel Arnott tok turen fra Leeds-akademiet og til Strømsgodset og Drammen.
Plutselig er det mulig å intervjue en av de som er tettest på Bielsa.
Leeds-Live tok muligheten med Arnott.
* Bielsas generaler er veldig vennlige personer
* spillergruppens innstilling overfor U23-gutta...
Living at Thorp Arch, 85-hour weeks and Robbie Gotts's socks:
Inside Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds UnitedFormer Leeds United coach Darren Arnott talks exclusively to LeedsLive about life under Marcelo Bielsa at Thorp Arch, working for him and how he has transformed the clubBy Beren Cross Leeds United club writer 08:00, 28 MAR 2021Marcelo Bielsa during the Premier League 2 match between Leeds United under-23 and Wolverhampton Wanderers under-23 at Leeds United Academy on September 18, 2020
Marcelo Bielsa has transformed the way Thorp Arch works (Image: Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images)
“I can’t tell you.”
Darren Arnott pauses, beaming.
“No, I can’t tell you. Maybe next time.”
The former Leeds United coach’s smile betrays his affection and respect for what Marcelo Bielsa means as a football coach to him.
Speaking to LeedsLive from his new base in Norway, Arnott has been asked about his first meeting with the Argentine after his summer arrival in 2018.
The 34-year-old is pushed for the memory and his grin only whets the appetite for how powerful an anecdote it must be, but he won’t budge.
It’s not the first example of someone proving reticent when asked about personal experiences in Bielsa’s company.
The head coach has such an aura about him and touches people, especially within the sport, in such a way they do not give up those moments easily.
Drammen, Norway is not the first place you would expect to find a Scarborough native earning his keep, but Arnott has not taken the conventional route in his pursuit of a career in football coaching.
Stints in the United States, York, Scarborough, Spain and Leeds ultimately took him to Stromsgodset, who play in Norway’s top flight.
Arnott has not been afraid of being outside his comfort zone and took the plunge in January this year despite the challenges posed by a global pandemic.
It’s the two-and-a-half years with Bielsa which, of course, stand out for Arnott, who spent the majority of his time at Thorp Arch with the under-23s and Carlos Corberan.
That first meeting with Bielsa came after a year away on secondment with Spain’s Atletico Astorga, one of the Aspire Academy clubs led by Ivan Bravo.
Like many aspiring coaches, Arnott had studied Bielsa’s methods, his Chile team and grown to idolise him. Keen to make an impression, he made a bold call upon his return.
“I came back at the same time Marcelo arrived and he’s someone I’d studied in America in 2010, so for me it was a great opportunity,” he said.
“To the point [where], behind the first-team training pitches, I got an apartment there so I could just move in and be ready to go, but if anything was ever needed, I was there.
“That was a good decision and a bad decision because I was always on call, but I was also working 85-hour weeks because I was close enough to do it.
“Unbelievable, invaluable experience. Really, really intense, but fantastic.”
The year in Spain, working within a different culture, a different process with a different language proved a solid foundation for what was to come working closely with Corberan, through what proved to be a title-winning season with the under-23s.
The Astorga experience built Arnott’s confidence, but little could have prepared him or anyone for what was to come at Thorp Arch under Bielsa’s vision. Eighty-five hour weeks were only the start.
“He has the presence, an aura, around him of how revered he is, really, in the coaching world and he demands immediate respect from anybody, especially a nobody like me who's lucky to be there, just to pick up the pieces and things I’m told to do,” he said.
“When he’s on the grass, he is the manager, the leader and when he’s off the grass he has a softer personality where needed.
“You see how he interacts with people around the training ground from the cleaning staff, the kitchen staff, the kit men. He’s just a really, really top guy.
“That’s where he demands respect even more, because of how he treats people.
“When he pushes people on the grass they’re willing to go above and beyond.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve been starstruck by anyone, but immediate respect for the things he’s done and what he can bring.
“I don’t know how to vocalise it. The realisation I have to be on everyday here to make sure I’m doing my job, providing what I have to provide to the highest level possible.
“It was ‘we’re here, we mean business now and I want to be part of this’.”
Bielsa would smash down any barriers between the under-23 and senior set-ups. It has become a fluid relationship with players going in and out of each group on a daily basis depending on the needs for that day.
It was a new way of working for everyone at the club. Arnott describes it as a shock to everyone’s system, but something everyone involved looks back on with pride given what was achieved then and what is still being built now.
“Carlos played a really big role in that, bringing that through,” he said. “You’re always going to have push-back internally on anything when something changes, it’s a natural human reaction.
“The staff in the under-23s, especially that first year, it was tough, it was a shock to the system and I look back on some of the work we did, the hours we put in.
“It was a shock for the players as well, much more stressful on the physical side, but it was reaping rewards.
“That first season was so transitional for everybody, when you look back, the staff from the first team down, it was a shock to the system.
“It’s never smooth sailing all the time, but everything was that one goal. The work done was unbelievable. You can see that now with the players.
“You can see that with the lads who have come through and the ones who are performing. That first season was a bedrock for what’s gone on since.
“You can only give credit to the people involved with it. I look back and even [remember] overhearing some conversations or the extra bit of video that’s been done with a player, or someone’s up until 2am doing this extra work just to give that extra one per cent to a lad on the bus.
“Everyone pushed themselves to do that.”
Bielsa can not only be credited with transforming footballers’ lives with the coaching he gives them, but also the transformation in the professional lives of his staff.
Under his stewardship, the coaches, as Arnott says, are driven to their working limits with analysis and time on the grass, but under that pressure comes knowledge and an eye for detail they did not think they had.
Danny Schofield, now at Huddersfield Town, was one of the coaches alongside Arnott with the under-23s at the time.
“Danny and I used to sit side by side for hours,” said Arnott. “We’d go through the games, sit there and be like ‘what are we looking at, what are we looking for, what are we doing’.
“I watched hundreds of hours of football. I could tell you how long Robbie Gotts’s socks are, to the centimetre, it’s just ridiculous.
“Now you look back and realise what your eyes are trained to see in terms of the systems and what the manager wanted us to see.
“We then saw them (clicks his fingers three times in a row) in a game that fast. That was the training for us.
“We didn’t know that at the time, so it was difficult, but now I see that faster because of what’s gone before.”
The players at Leeds have always stressed the distance Bielsa keeps from them. There is a professionalism to what he does and clear boundaries he will not cross with them, especially off the field.
It is not too dissimilar with the coaches. There is a chain of command and a close circle of lieutenants who have the most contact with the Argentine.
Pablo Quiroga, Diego Flores and Diego Reyes were the major faces who arrived with Bielsa and proved to be the main link between the likes of Arnott and the head coach until Corberan got up to speed.
How was it for the likes of Arnott and those already in the building when Bielsa rocked up with his legion of underlings?
“It’s super professional,” he said. “The guys are fantastic. They’re a brilliant group of people as well. They’d do anything for you. Really, really friendly off the pitch.
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https://smarturl.it/YorkshireFactbox“When we’re working, we’re working. I do remember the first time Diego Flores was sent down and he really showed us the standards.
“Carlos was in that and he was learning at the same time, initially and at a much quicker rate than we were.
“That was a shock [and showed us there was] no second free.”
Arnott maintains the greatest thrill in the job is seeing players achieve their goals, helping them to meet their targets and, at Leeds, seeing under-23 prospects successfully make the transition into the senior unit.
One of the core features of Bielsa’s tenure has been the debuts handed down to those coming through the ranks at Thorp Arch.
Arnott watched the work done with the youngsters at first hand on the pitches at the training ground and had praise not just for the head coach, but the characters in the current senior squad.
“The integration, it’s proved how strong it's been,” he said “It’s not just the footballing side, it’s the senior pros seeing the quality of the younger players.
“It’s the way the senior pros speak to the younger players. They know when to go hard on them, they know when to go soft, they know when to give them some experienced advice, they know when to pull off them.
“For the younger players coming through, to have the confidence to even go into tackles, to fizz passes in, to make those lung-busting runs, to follow a Jack Harrison the length of the pitch and show he can keep with him.
“Those are psychologically really big moments. That’s really underrated in the integration because it’s powerful.”
Pascal Struijk is evidently someone close to Arnott’s heart and a central figure in the aforementioned under-23 silverware won in 2019.
The way the defender has settled into Premier League football this term has delighted him.
“Pascal’s a fantastic story because I think back to some games in the past where he’s struggled and you know he’s got the quality, you know he’s got the physical stature, so intelligent and such a good person,” he said.
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“He’s a fantastic footballer and you’re just wanting him to take that opportunity. You see a couple of games he played in the Championship and he maybe wasn’t giving the best account of himself.
“The fans have maybe put question marks on him and you’re just hoping he can come through that period.
“Now you look at him and of course he’s had fortune in his opportunity coming, but he’s doing everything he can to take it.
“He’s looked fantastic, as he should.”
Arnott made the switch to Norway in January and after spending 10 days holed up in a hotel while quarantining he’s finally strung together seven weeks of coaching with his new charges.
Eliteserien, the top flight over there, is one of the divisions still trying to get its house in order before getting its teams back out onto the pitches for competitive action.
For now, Arnott continues to acclimate to his new surroundings and look to make his mark in yet another country.
https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/sport/leeds-united/thorp-arch-bielsa-leeds-united-20271633
