Opinion: Marcelo Bielsa’s comments about supporter’s faith have come at the perfect time

I’m still not sure if this is the right sort of message to be sending.

With the amount of fear that has started to settle into the Leeds United fanbase in recent weeks, head coach Marcelo Bielsa seems to be doing his best to try and reassure fans that he has everything under control.

Speaking during his press conference ahead of a crucial game against promotion-chasing Nottingham Forest, Bielsa spoke about the nerves that some fans might be feeling and what he’s going to do to alleviate their fears:

“If the supporters have lost faith in the team we have to recover the confidence that we lost. We have to recover the confidence that the supporter does not have now. We need the confidence of the supporter and if we don’t deserve it, we are trying to recover it. What we are not going to do is give up and not trust in ourselves, because we deserve to keep the trust in our side.”

The fact is though, that there are certain things that are causing trust to be lost by the fans that he needs to get sorted. The whole saga over Jean-Kevin Augustin being simply the latest one, it comes across that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong and that Bielsa is still learning to adapt to the Championship on the fly.

You could make the argument that this game has come at the perfect time for these sort of comments to come around. A ‘six-pointer’ against a team that is chasing us down in the hunt for a top-two spot really means a lot more than just the points.

If Leeds can’t manage to get themselves back on track in a game like this, then perhaps it will send a message to Bielsa and the rest of the squad just what kind of mammoth task they have on their hands to get this right, and maybe that will give him the impetus to actually change what he is doing rather than being so ‘stubborn’.

I hinted during my recent article about Jack Harrison just how much is at stake for Leeds United this season, and now the truth is staring us hard in the face. A loss against Forest, and that truth is going to hit home an awful lot harder.