Loads of Leeds United fans have been left alarmed on social media after a sports psychotherapist stated that the Whites first-team have issues.
Gary Bloom, a clinical psychotherapist who works for League One Oxford United, has told the Yorkshire Evening Post that Leeds have psychological issues that are standing in the way of Marcelo Bielsa’s men securing promotion into the Premier League.
Bloom feels the senior fold have a mental block impacting their performances, having seen United repeat the same tendencies time and time again this season only to end up with the same result.
“There’s a great saying my trainer said to me, that once is an accident, twice is a coincidence and three times is a message,” he said. “We’ve had 18 games now where the same pattern of football arises. If you’re playing 18 games of football and the same thing happens, you have 30-plus chances per game and you are only getting a strike percentage of five per cent, something significant has gone wrong.
“I would say there’s a collective disbelief inside the team that this is going to be fixed. We’re doing the same thing over and over again. Something has to change. As human beings, if the same thing happens over and over again, we somehow have an innate belief it’s going to happen again.”
Should Leeds hire a psychotherapist?
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Patrick Bamford’s form as the leading figure in our attack has also caught Bloom’s attention, as the number of chances the Grantham-born striker needs to score one or two goals in a game suggests that he suffers as much as anyone else of that disbelief.
“There’s no rhyme nor reason why Leeds can’t take 10 or 15 chances in a game,” Bloom added. “But there’s an inner belief that’s not going to happen. I would be wanting to know why Bamford takes 20 chances to score one or two. Look at how many times he only scores when his team are winning.”
Bamford is our leading ‘scorer in the Championship this season with 12 strikes to his name in 29 games, but the 26-year-old is also the league’s leading figure for shots taken with 107 and shots off target with 53 – QPR’s Jordan Hugill and Brentford’s Said Benrahma have missed the second-most shots with 37, per WhoScored data.
Our £10million ex-Middlesbrough hitman also leads the second-tier for big chances missed with Bamford spurning 19 to date, while Jack Harrison has squandered eight and Mateusz Klich, Stuart Dallas, Ezgjan Alioski, Eddie Nketiah and Adam Forshaw have all missed four while representing United this term.
Here are some of the messages shared as fans reacted with alarm to Bloom’s claims of Leeds having a collective sense of disbelief…
The diffference between being good and great is often in the mind. Some of our squad could use the support i think
— Dazill (@Desmondo007) February 6, 2020
We clearly need to employ one
— corbywhite (@gandalflufc) February 6, 2020
Cant really argue with him hes 100% right. We only seem to play well or score more than 1 or 2 if we score first and you can see we struggle the longer it takes us to score
— samuel gallagher (@samuelgallaghe2) February 6, 2020
You don’t need a degree to know this, you just need a season ticket.
— mightywhites#lufc💙💛 (@anglonorviking) February 6, 2020
Difficult to argue with
— LUFC BBQ (@ThegreekZorba) February 6, 2020
I think the fact that the bad run started with that 3-3 Cardiff game could be the sign that the players could do with some help. It felt to fans like that Derby play off game…..it looked like it felt that way to the players too. Like slipping sand.
— Joanne McCudden (@jemccudden) February 6, 2020
Imo and it’s only my opinion, if we do fail it will be down to the mentality side and for anyone not to explore this as an option is very blinkered. Why not, what’s the worst that could happen?
— Mr Popular (@Russlufc) February 6, 2020
I do agree psychology is a major issue for all professional sports people. I’m surprised the club have no structure for this in place.
— Neil (@OooahhBerardi) February 6, 2020
In other Leeds United news, fans have been urging Bielsa to axe a one-time international when we face Nottingham Forest on Saturday.