There were a number of topics covered in Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa’s press conference on Friday as we continue preparations for the Elland Road clash against fellow promotion hopefuls Aston Villa later today.
Having blown our automatic hopes with back to back defeats to Wigan Athletic and Brentford in recent weeks, we still have the opportunity to celebrate a good promotion winning season, but key to that is getting back to winnings ways and restoring some confidence and momentum to the first team.
As you’d expect, this was a big topic in the chat when he met with the media and Sky Sports have the gaffer as remaining very grounded about things, as despite the obvious disappointment, we all know the single area of our play that needs to improve – our ability to be clinical given we create so many chances across a 90 minutes.
“When you lose, you lose, it’s obvious. But we cannot ignore the way these losses happened. The way the players feel is normal, if they didn’t feel that way, we would be worried about it. The only feeling I have towards our players is respect and consideration. We’ve been very demanding with them, and they have given everything. Of course we need to play a game that will rebuild our optimism, and winning would help with that.”
Let’s hope we get back on the winning horse today, but whatever reaction Bielsa has seen in training obviously means he’s keeping faith with the players, and they should be out to prove a point themselves.