“It will be incredible for English football to have him in the Premier League next season. Winning titles helps to have a job next season but at the end of your life, what you remember is not the titles you have won, what you remember is the memories you have and whether the manager taught you a lot. What we remember are the experiences and the memories, the players you have had, the managers you have had. Marcelo is at the top of the list. Absolutely at the top of the list.”
These are the words of Pep Guardiola, a man who has won eight league titles with three different teams in three different countries, to describe Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa, the man who has not only restored the club back to top-flight football but done so much more. Everyone – players, fans, staff, ownership – has taken on board his ethos of working harder than anyone else and seen their work rewarded when so often in Bielsa’s long, distinguished career he has been close but seen his work go unrewarded with a trophy. The wonderful look of delight on his face as he raised the 2019/20 Championship trophy aloft was almost as wonderful as the fact he was only lifting it because the other players – the players he has taught so much over two years – were actively encouraging their great motivator and inspiration to lift it. It is a team effort for Bielsa and not just about him.
But just how has Marcelo Bielsa transformed Leeds United from a 13th-place finish in 2017/18 – Leeds’ sixth finish between 13th and 15th in the previous seven seasons – to Championship winners in the space of two years? It certainly wasn’t by buying a completely brand new starting XI – of the 26 players used by Paul Heckingbottom in his 16-game spell as manager between February and May 2018, 14 have appeared under Bielsa in his two years, with six of those playing over 50 games for him; one of the players not available to Heckingbottom, loaned out before he joined by the previous manager Thomas Christiansen, has subsequently returned to the club and started 92 consecutive league and play-off games for Bielsa – the indefatigable Mateusz Klich.
Dominating the ball has been key to Leeds’ playing style – in their 94 Championship matches under Bielsa, Leeds have had more possession than their opponents in 90 of those matches, an incredible 96% of matches. Only including clubs in the Premier League and Championship in the past two seasons, Leeds’ tally of 96% is the highest of any club, marginally better than Manchester City, managed of course by Pep Guardiola.
Although dominating possession is almost non-negotiable in this Marcelo Bielsa team, Leeds may find it more difficult to have as much as 64% possession – their overall average in the Championship in the last two seasons – in the Premier League. Encouragingly, of the six lowest possession figures Leeds have recorded in the Championship under Bielsa, they have won all six and only conceded one goal; in fact, of the 24 games when Leeds have had fewer than 60% possession, they’ve only lost one – the 2-4 home defeat to Derby in last season’s play-off semi-final at Elland Road.
Attacking football is part of Bielsa’s DNA – attack is the best form of defence, and football is about entertainment. In the last two seasons, Leeds have had 1,580 shots in their 94 Championship games – at least 200 more than any other team to have played at least 90 games in England’s top four tiers in that time. They also rank second – behind Man City – for shots on target, but worryingly are down in 74th position for shot conversion rate – fewer than 10% - among the 94 teams to have played in England’s top four tiers since August 2018.
Leeds have had 12 permanent managers since they won promotion from League One in 2010, with former chairman Massimo Cellino bizarrely comparing his head coaches to watermelons (“you only know how good it is when you open it” he remarked after appointing Dave Hockaday) and Bielsa is the first manager to fully complete two consecutive campaigns since Simon Grayson (2009/10 & 2010/11). Comparing the Championship data from the previous six – Uwe Rosler onwards – shows how Bielsa has transformed the team’s fortunes. Although Leeds finished 7th in 2016/17 under Garry Monk, their joint-best position since promotion in 2010 prior to Bielsa joining – they did so facing almost two more shots per game than Leeds were having themselves. Under Bielsa, Leeds are having almost eight more shots per game than their opponents, and the Argentinian’s per game figures outweigh each of his five predecessors comfortably in each instance.
The final game against Charlton – Leeds’ biggest win in their final league game of the season since 1993/94, when they beat Swindon 5-0 – was Marcelo Bielsa’s 100th as manager, and his 56th victory, the joint-most ever in a manager’s first 100 games as Leeds manager, level with Simon Grayson, while Grayson is also the only manager to reach 50 wins in fewer games (87) than Bielsa, with Grayson’s 50th win the 2-1 win over Bristol Rovers in May 2010; Bielsa’s 50th win, over Fulham in June, was in his 93rd match. Bielsa does, however, have the best win ratio of any manager in the club’s entire history – 56%.
Amid the chaos and worry that was the Championship run-in, Leeds – famed for supposedly falling apart – won 12 of their final 14 matches to finish 10 points clear, the biggest gap at the top of a Championship table since 2009/10, when Newcastle United won the league by 11 points ahead of West Bromwich Albion, while Leeds’ superb defence shipped only 35 goals – the fewest by a Championship winner since QPR in 2010/11 (32). Leeds kept 22 league clean sheets, their most in a season since 1971/72, when Don Revie’s side kept an impressive 23. Even more impressively, it’s the first time since the 1996/97 campaign – one famed for George Graham’s insistence on a solid defence, yielding just 28 goals but only 38 conceded – that the club have topped the clean sheet table in their league outright (Graham’s side kept 20).
Leeds’ high tally of clean sheets was down in no small part to goalkeeper Illan Meslier. Signed on loan from Lorient at the start of the season, the Frenchman was an unused sub 15 times before getting his chance in the FA Cup match at Arsenal. After Kiko Casilla’s suspension, Meslier played 10 of Leeds’ final 11 league matches, letting in just four goals and posting a save percentage of 83%, the best of any goalkeeper in the Championship, saving 20 of the 24 shots on target he faced. By shipping just four goals in his first 10 league starts Meslier broke the all-time Leeds United club record, previously held by Shane Higgs, who let in five in his first 10 in 2009. Seven clean sheets in his first 10 league starts also equalled the club record, set by Fred Whalley back in 1921.
After a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest in February, full-back Luke Ayling gave an extremely downbeat interview to Bryn Law on LUTV, the fifth game in a worrying run of four defeats in five games as Leeds lost their gap in the automatic promotion places, with Fulham level on points with Leeds and Forest just one point behind them in 4th. In the final 15 games of the season, Leeds then won 38 points from a possible 45 – 10 more than anyone else – and finished the season an incredible 23 points clear of Forest, who picked up just 16 points in their final 15 games. Leeds also won their final six league matches – the first team to do that in the second tier since Neil Warnock’s Notts County back in 1990/91, who won their last seven games then won the play-offs
In his interview after the Forest game, Ayling mentioned the importance of scoring the first goal – he certainly wasn’t wrong. Leeds scored first in 30 games in all competitions in 2019/20 and won 27 and drew three of them, losing none after scoring first for the first time since 2009/10, also Leeds’ last promotion season. In total under Bielsa, Leeds have scored first in 55 games and won 49 of them, drawing four and losing two – both inexplicable defeats to Wigan and Derby at the end of the 2018/19 season, both in their own way costing Leeds promotion last season. Even as recently as the 2014/15 season, Leeds lost eight matches when scoring first, while they lost five in 2017/18, the campaign prior to Bielsa’s arrival.
In the now cult football documentary Warnock, which has behind-the-scenes footage of Neil Warnock at work as Sheffield United manager in the 2004/05 season, Warnock is seen on the touchline at an away game at Millwall absolutely irate at a decision made by the referee. “What’s the difference? We’re away from home. We’re in London aren’t we?” he says, as an explanation as to why the decision has gone against him. Leeds in recent times must be asking themselves the very same question – for a second consecutive season, Leeds were winless in every game they played in London, a total of 10 games in all competitions. Leeds have won just one of their last 23 away games in London, a 3-1 win over QPR in December 2017 courtesy of a Kemar Roofe hat-trick. Leeds have scored first in just three of those 23, losing at Charlton in April 2015 and drawing 1-1 at Fulham in March 2017 aside from the 3-1 QPR victory. Steve Evans is the only manager in that run to keep clean sheet in the capital, in a 0-0 draw at Charlton in 2015/16. In 2019/20, Leeds broke their club record for away league wins with 13 – all 13 came outside of London, and at 2.33 points per game in these matches, it was comfortably the best ratio in away games not played in London in all of England’s top four tiers this season.
Since Leeds were relegated from the Premier League in 2004, it is hard to think of a more talismanic player at the club than Pablo Hernandez. Under Marcelo Bielsa, the club have won 64% of their games with him in the team compared to just 29% without. He has been directly involved in 42 Championship goals under Bielsa (21 goals, 21 assists), 12 more than any other player, while also creating 204 chances for his Leeds colleagues in that time – a league-high since August 2018, with his 21 assists beaten by only Brentford’s Said Benrahma (22) in that timeframe. His recent winning goal against former side Swansea in the 89th minute was his second in as many games, making him the oldest player (35 years and 92 days) to score in consecutive league matches for Leeds since Peter Lorimer in 1984, who was 37.
Leeds have been blessed to have both Pablo Hernandez and Marcelo Bielsa at the same time, complementing one another; Bielsa’s relentless attacking style suits Hernandez’s game perfectly, with the Spaniard’s incredible footballing brain and quality to play passes others can’t see to perfection. Hernandez has described himself as “lucky” to have crossed paths with Bielsa so late into his career, while Bielsa has called Hernandez “one of the best players in his position I have worked with in my career”. In the club’s entire history, there have 316 instances of a player making at least 50 appearances under a manager – of those 316, the player with the best win ratio under a manager is Hernandez under Bielsa – 63.6%.
Prior to Bielsa taking over, Mateusz Klich had played nine times for Leeds (just six of them starts) and not been seen in a squad since being an unused substitute away at Ipswich Town in January 2018. Bielsa gave him a chance in pre-season ahead of 2018/19, and the Pole then started and scored the first goal of his manager’s reign against Stoke in August and didn’t miss a league match (including play-offs) for 92 matches, stringing together the longest run of consecutive starts by an outfielder since Gary Kelly started 99 between 1993 and 1995. By the time it came to an end – after some well earned beers in the wake of Leeds’ promotion – he was joint-8th on the list of consecutive starts for outfielders in the club’s entire history, level with Trevor Cherry.
In early July, Leeds United’s Academy earned Category One status for the first time, richly deserved after the hard work the club’s staff has put in. In the final match against Charlton Athletic, Leeds had six players aged under-21 (Meslier, Struijk, Shackleton, Stevens, Bogusz, Poveda) appear in a league match for the first time since September 1985 against Bradford City, when the club was managed by Eddie Gray. Across the course of the campaign, 13 players aged under-21 were used by Leeds, the most in a season since 1965/66, when Don Revie used 14 players aged under-21 in the club’s second season back in the top-flight, featuring legendary names like Reaney, Lorimer, Madeley and Gray. Marcelo Bielsa, whose preference to have a smaller first-team squad undoubtedly helps the younger players appear in the first-team should they impress in the U23s, has awarded 17 debuts to players aged under-21 as Leeds United manager; only the two managers to lift the top-flight title with the club, Don Revie (35) and Howard Wilkinson (20), have given more debuts to under-21’s. Even David O’Leary, who famously described his team as “babies”, only gave eight players aged under-21 their debuts, although three of those went on to play for England – Jonathan Woodgate, Alan Smith and Paul Robinson. Leeds’ fourth goal against Charlton – scored by Jamie Shackleton and assisted by Ian Poveda – was the first Leeds goal to be scored and assisted by players aged under-21 for 11 years, since Fabian Delph set-up Jonny Howson’s second goal in a 2-0 win over Cheltenham Town in February 2009 in League One.
As well as introducing younger players into the fold, Leeds now have several players in the squad with well over 100 appearances for the club, proving the stability and continuation the club now has. Gone are the days of summers of upheaval with many departures and selling players on the cheap (see: Jonny Howson and Robert Snodgrass, 416 appearances between them, in the space of six months in 2011/12) and gone are the days of having inexperienced squads; for one match against Bury in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy in November 2007, Leeds’ starting XI had just 94 appearances for the club combined before kick-off – the fewest for a game since the club’s first Football League season in 1920/21 (having had Filipe Da Costa sent off, Leeds lost 2-1 that night). Five players reached the 150 appearance mark this season – Stuart Dallas, Kalvin Phillips, Gaetano Berardi, Pablo Hernandez and Luke Ayling – the most in one season since five did so during the 1965/66 season (Sprake, Reaney, Johanneson, Giles and Hunter). The starting XI for the Charlton game on the final day featured six players with 100 appearances for the club, only the seventh time that has happened since the club were relegated from the top-flight in 2004. The next player to reach a big milestone will be Liam Cooper, who is two games away from 200 matches for the club – no player has reached that since Luciano Becchio in 2012, and only three have done so since relegation, with Brian Deane (who made the majority of his appearances in his first spell between 1993 and 1997) doing so in 2005 and Jonny Howson in 2011. Another player close to a milestone is Jamie Shackleton, on 48 appearances, who should play as often as possible – Leeds have won 75% of the matches he has played (36 out of 48), quite comfortably a club record percentage. Although 34 of those have been sub appearances (with Shackleton ending on the winning side in 29 of those – 85%), Shackleton has been an unused sub 30 times and Leeds have won just eight of those, losing 16 when he’s been left on the bench. If in doubt, put Shackleton on.
On the topic of substitutes, Leeds benefitted from 11 goals from the subs bench in 2019/20 in the Championship. Although nowhere near a league-high (Cardiff scored 19), only one season in the club’s history have the club had more substitute goals in the league, scoring 12 goals in the club’s promotion season in 2009/10. Five of this season's sub goals were after the restart, with subs benches extended to include nine players instead of seven. Two subs scored in the same game against Charlton – Shackleton and Tyler Roberts – the first time Leeds have done that since October 2009 against Yeovil Town, when both Max Gradel and Tresor Kandol scored. Prior to that, it had only happened three times, and one of those involved Lee Bowyer, whose Charlton side were on the receiving end on Wednesday night.
The last two years with Marcelo Bielsa have been the most exciting, entertaining and ultimately successful period the club has had for some time. As Leeds enter the Premier League for the first time in 16 years, it is imperative Leeds continue the good work of the previous two seasons, keeping the squad largely together and looking to introduce the next crop of talented young players emerging, while adding to the shrewd additions of Helder Costa and Illan Meslier, as well as the third consecutive loan of Jack Harrison. With Bielsa at the helm, anything is possible. He’s allowed us all to dare to dream again. Keep bringing Jamie Shackleton off the subs bench every week and we might even win the Premier League.