Leeds United missed the chance to return to the top of the table on Tuesday and appeared sparse of ideas at times, but a lack of energy could be pivotal according to our former defender Sol Bamba, per quotes by HITC, taken from Sky Sports News’ Football Centre.
If the Whites have serious ambitions to go up, especially through the automatic places, this lack of ideas is something that Marcelo Bielsa will have to address promptly, otherwise, the run of form we have shown in 2019 will either continue as is or get worse, to the detriment of everything built thus far.
Had the season begun at the turn of the year, we would not be looking at challenging for the top places, but instead, we would be glancing over our shoulder in the hope that we would be the side emerging from the middle of the pack as a late charger.
Thankfully the campaign did not start on January 1, and we are still in the hunt to be a top-two side looking at automatic promotion.
Former Leeds defender Bamba, who we released in 2016, feels that could be a tall order, though, no matter how important the places could prove to be, partly down to the extent Bielsa asks his players to exert on the practice pitches.
The 34-year-old Cardiff captain was speaking on Sky Sports News’ Football Centre on Wednesday (February 27, 10:50) when he discussed our chances of going up.
“I do think they have got more steal about them this season,” Bamba said. “Hopefully, they can stay there and hang in there and do automatic because [winning the] playoffs is very, very difficult.
“I think their manager is very demanding. Maybe it is a bit of tiredness in there. I don’t know because they have been doing that in the previous season as well.
“You can’t always say it’s about fatigue. I feel like they always do that at the wrong time of the year, so hopefully, they can hang in there and [finish] in the top two.”