En fascinerende pressekonferanse - det skriver både Phil Hay og kilden vår her, Leeds Live...
Pre Norwich pressekonferansen.
13:00
Any minute now...
Bielsa doesn’t normally keep us waiting, so I’d imagine he’ll be here any moment now...
13:02
Five minutes
Five minutes, we’re told with an apology.
Keep on holding on there...
13:08
Here's here...
And starts with an apology for being late.
13:08
Latest team news
Cooper won’t be able to play, neither Dallas, neither Forshaw and we’re waiting for mores regarding Jansson.
13:10
Is the squad being stretched?
No, not at all.
Because if we make the maths, we have four players less. Dallas, Forshaw and Cooper won’t be able to play. If we had a fourth one Jansson, but we already knew that and we also work with the under-23s and we have some players playing in this position who could offer us some solutions
13:16
Has anything about the Championship surprised Marcelo?
Before starting the competition you can draw up an analysis, a table, with the rankings before the games are being played. You can establish a ranking before the start of the Championship, taking into account the budget, quality of players, strength of the institution.
But then, when you play, the differences you see at the beginning are not evident, you don’t see them. There’s a term which says that you can win before playing because of the history you have as a club. They games you’ve played before. And this doesn’t happen in the Championship.
For example in the Premier League, it’s hard to find which teams will finish in the top six. It’s the same in Germany, Spain, Italy, France and this competition which is among the ten most important in the world does not respond to this logic.
I’m sorry to give you such a long answer.
13:13
Defensive problems against Swansea - are they resolved?
When we have a problem our hope is obviously to find a solution.
When we make a mistake, it allows us to detect it and try to find a solution.
I can’t assure you that the problem won’t happen again.
But when I can tell you is that when we are aware of a problem, we are in a better position to resolve it.
The problems I saw in the last game, we didn’t have them before but I take into account that Shackleton played in the position of Ayling, that Ayling played in the position of Cooper and in the position of Phillips, Klich played.
Usually Shackleton plays as a number 8, Ayling is a full-back and Klich is a mixed midfielder.
The three players just mentioned could play in the positions they played in the last game, the profile of the team was more offensive with these changes, the lack of coordination was more probable to happen, so it’s my job to find solutions
13:18
At half-time you take your subs in, rather than have them warm up - why?
This happens sometimes, not always.
And there are some messages I wold like to transmit and I would like all the players to listen to these messages.
During half-time we have ten minutes to give information during the game. As each player can participate during the the game, it’s normal that I want them to listen to what I have to say.
13:28
How pleased were you that the players stuck to their style at Swansea, despite being behind?
You know it’s not easy to change the style.
To transmit a style to a team, you need time to do that. To integrate a style, to assimilate a style, you need time. Sometimes it happens in a short time, sometimes you need more time.
And when you win games it makes it easier to assimilate the style because human beings believe more fastly to things which allow them to win.
The idea to have alternative plans which is considered a virtue, I don’t really share this point of view.
I think we have to do what gives us more possibilities. The goal is to do better, not to stop doing it and change the style.
Because when you know how to do different things would mean that you have to share the time available to share ideas in different goals. So it’s natural that the same function that two players with different features can do the same function.
But this doesn’t change the style.
Harrison is a winger who does deep movement. He always tries to find the ball behind the opponents.
Pablo is a winger who strengthens his play getting the ball before the line of the rivals.
Our style makes us play on the sides, but you can do this play in different ways.
You can play deep or make combinations and do that with other players, so as a matter of fact, our ambiton is to find more solutions to one problem, but the style is the same.
This question separates the world of football. I don’t think I am the master of the truth. I try to explain why I act like that. I know in the world of football, all the people don’t share my point of view.
As a common fact, the substitute don’t go to the conversation we have at half-time. So when this matter is brought to the table, what I say is not always the sub comes to hear what i have to say. But what I think, they should always be here to listen to what I have to say at half-time. Because the way we think the game, they won’t listen to how we think about the game.
So an alternative answer would be that football is easy, you have nothing to say about it. But we have to analyse the game. We have to analyse during 10 minutes the first half, so what would be the argument? What would be the reason for the sub not to share this moment? Common sense says they have to be here to hear what I have to say. This is my point of view. But we also have to take into account the POV of the people who think opposite.
What is really important is that football offers you different POVs on one same reality.
If we don;t understand that you have different POVs regarding one topic, your question would have been meaningless, but your question is interesting because we have different POVs on one situation, because you linked result with the style. But I didn’t say this, I say no, we need the style to get the results.
I have a lot of work with such a complex explanation.
13:37
So you have a plan A and you always stick to it - no plan B?
I study and I try to learn those who propose an alternative plan. My point of view, I’ve just explained during ten minutes.
I always analysis and study the other point of view to see if I have to change mine. But the thing I cannot do, I cannot do this because my job is to try and convince people on what I think that to transmit what produces triumph, good results on a specific moment. In order to convince people I have to believe in what I’m saying. Because the footballer only believes something he truly believes in.
Because when the footballer finds out the head coach was trying to convince you and doesn’t share the POV they were trying to convince you, it just abandons you.
I’m going to tell you a serious mistake I made. The kind you don’t forgive yourselves.
I was the head coach of a great striker, Crespo.
He was a very generous player. I trained him in two different moments, a young player and then when he was an experienced player.
When he was a young player I told him once that I thought he was a player with maturity, but I was lying to him. I was trying to strengthen his self-esteem.
Giving him a skill that I didn’t think he had. After some time when he got the maturity I told him now you’re really a mature player, not the same player as before.
What did he think? How come you told me I wasn’t mature before? You lied to me?
Because before you told me I was a strong player but you didn’t believe it. I cannot forgive. I’m right not to forgive myself.
I tell you this not to just tell you a stroy.
My goal is to publically apologise to Crespo because I know I didn’t tell him the truth. It was election forever, I learned that lecture, but I already knew it, because if you lie to your son in order that your son gets something from this artificial moment of strength, the lie, you will just resolve the problem for that day, that moment. But you will have actually weakened him in the future. Because you will have convinced him he has a feature he will only have for a small ammount of time. You have resources that you assimilate forever and this is having maturity.
But when you are not mature you can have some resources you will have when you a mature player, but only for short amount of time.
THe mistake I made with Crespo, to get him involved was to tell him he was like this forever and actually that did not work. Because he went even further than I told him before.
It’s a nice example because it’s Hernan Crespo. A very good player.
13:41
On Norwich's pink dressing room - do these tricks work?
The pink colour is linked to women. For babies when they are born, if it’s a boy we given them something blue, a girl, pink.
We can’t say that men can’t say that women are not a source of stimulation.
But this relationship, he stimulation between men and women happens between a man and a woman. Before a game you don’t have any colours which has a capacity to weaken the desire for training or competition.
The pink colour is a meaningful colour between the relationship between a man and woman, but not for a game.
We told our equipment colleagues to put some papaers up in the dressing room before they come.
13:42
What are you expecting from Norwich?
Norwich is a team that plays better than the points they have. And they won their first game and I think we will play against them and they will have enthusaism very high, which is good for us.
13:42
Many changes off the back of the busy schedule?
This coming Saturday, I don’t think so. For next Tuesday I’m sure.
13:46
How pleased with Bamford off the bench?
I’m very happy with the performance of Bamford’s last game. He had am impact on the game. Harrison had an impact, not as important as Bamford, and Baker too. And these three players gave vigour to the team.
13:50
How did Kalvin Phillips react to being substituted so early on?
Normally, he trained as usual.
I value and I appreciate his professionalism, his behaviour, when I took this decisions, which is not a frequent decision
You know there is an unwritten rule that resolves the relationship between footballers and the head coach because we are colleague.
I always analysis the decisions and when I make wrong decisions I always hope that my players do not show that I made a mistake.
We have different jobs but the player makes mistakes and I make mistakes too and we have to be tolerant when we make mistakes.
Usually I say I made a mistake, thank you for not letting me down.
13:58
And that's all from Bielsa...
Wow, where to start?
That was fascinating. Plenty to dig out of that. Stay tuned.
