Pablo Hernandez has been one of Marcelo Bielsa’s key players this season and is calling on the rest of the Leeds squad to embrace the pressure they will have to deal with during a promotion fight.
The Spaniard has shared his views on securing United’s first return to the top-flight in fifteen years with the Yorkshire Post and feels that the players can benefit from the gravity of the task at hand rather than allowing it to consume their aspirations.
Ahead of Friday night’s clash with fourth-placed West Bromwich Albion, the midfielder has made the fifth most appearances under Bielsa in the Championship, and will again be tasked with making a difference against Darren Moore’s side with the Argentine expected to name an unchanged XI.
What can set Hernandez aside from the rest of the squad, though, is his experience competing in the Champions League with Valencia, something that he can draw on in the darkest hours of the run-in.
“I played a lot of years in the Spanish league and the Champions League with Valencia so I know what it is to play for something,” Hernandez Said. “You have a pressure to get results. I think it is good for us and we need to use this pressure in the right way.
“Sometimes when you have pressure you do not want the ball, you do not want mistakes. I think that we need to take this pressure but in the opposite way.
“All the players need to show on the pitch what they can do. I am sure we can win games. I think we have shown we can beat any team in this league and we have a good chance to show this.
“We know that we have lost points in the last month. We analyse the games and we know we deserve more points, but the table is the table. We are in third position and, obviously, if someone told us in August that we were in this position then everyone would have said that it is a good position.”
Victory over West Brom on Friday night will lift Leeds back to the top of the Championship going into the weekend, and will take the pressure from West Yorkshire down to London as current league leaders Norwich City travel to Millwall on Saturday afternoon.