MB'S PRESS CONFERENCES

[SCOTTISH LEEDS]

Berardi and Hernandez

Berardi has injured his knee.

Muscular issue for Hernandez - recovered well then in preparation he felt another point in muscle - time for recovery we planned. We will respect the time of recovery.

[SCOTTISH LEEDS]

More from Bielsa on injuries

Regarding injuries I would like to make a short comment - the performance of the players is getting worse when you don’t have any activity - when I say official games. So the games for the U23 is a possibility to put players who play less, because if otherwise they won’t be fit to play in the first team. That is why I am trying to explain why Bamford played for U23 and why Blackman and Baker have too. So when they go in the first team they will be fit enough.

When the injury to Bamford happened - we always criticise the decision we take but we have indispensable decisions to make. The injury of Bamford - we didn’t have any doubt about it. When he jumped and then he fell he hurt his knee - I am giving this so you don’t think it is imprudent to give minutes.

Adam Forshaw has not played in the last two months - it will be an obligation to feature in the U23s - if he plays in the first team before it will not be ideal.

[Mr Russell]

Thanks SL for all of that

[SCOTTISH LEEDS]

MB's post match comments:-

He's here. Did you deserve more than a point?

Forgetting the last five minutes we could have won the game. We had the last five minutes of the game. We could have lost the game.

What was the key moment? A substitution?

The main argument of our opponent are the throw ins, the corners, the long balls and all of these arguments are legitimate ones.

And to impose our style we needed to do more complicated things.

And we think that being faithful to our style is important.

It’s not like that because our opponents defend and create chances to score. We defend and we create situations to score.

We did what we had to do to score and to win the game.

But the last five minutes complicated things.

Overall pleased with the performance?

It was hard for us to play well. The position of Klich was a new position for him. Because he played as a fourth defender in front of the three main CBs.So he coulnd’t use his main skill which is to make offensive action.s

For the teamwe feel we’re lacking this kind of skill and he’s not used to playing the kind of position.

He’s not used to making the link between the defence and attack. When he cold do that he palyed well.

But it was hard for us to give the ball to Saiz because he is our player who can create.

What was the bust up at the end about?

I am responsible for this situation, I take responsibility because I am in football longer than my colleague.

I have to understand that circumstances that you have during a game, you don’t have to take them as they are. If you win or lose, it means a lot worse and sometimes we behave in a kind of way just after we lament our behaviour.

I think I have the obligation of not behaving like this and I shouldn’t allow myself to behave like this because when you get more experienced, older, you should moderate your behaviour, I apologise.

How important to maintain unbeaten record?

We controlled the game at the end. We lacked stability for the last five minutes. For us it’s still hard to resolve situations that we know in advance we are going to face. We prepare ourselves to avoid what happened. We know we will have some kind of things during a game and we’re prepared to find solutions. It’s hard besides that to avoid this. It means we still have to improve.

If you have a look for the corners or the set pieces the ball made high movement and it was going down, usually the ball arrives to the box with a lot of strength and in this case for their set pieces they played balls that were going up and down and we observed that before the game but we couldn’t neutralise this kind of ball even though we prepared. That’s why these two games, Millwall and Middlesbrough were a challenge for us and we got two draws, we didn’t deserve to win any of them. I repeat, for the game of today until the minute 90 we deserved to win, but if we take into account the last five minutes it was even hard for us to get the draw.

This makes us believe that we still have improve and grow as a team. I don’t think it’s linked with the injurd players, I think it’s small links with the development of the experience of our style.

A challenge to work with young subs today?

Every player who came in are experienced players.

I know that the players not with us are important players but I can’t take as justification that we had players missing to explain why we didn’t win.

Were you confident the goal would come?

When you have a small difference 1-0, you always keep faith and have hope that even if regarding the creation of danger we decreased a little bit we ha the feeling that we could score and get the draw.

How did Roberts do?

Some people value the strikers when they score a goal. But I prefer to value them taking into account the number of chances they have to score. I think he had three or four chances to score.

And if he had scored one goal we would be all saying that he had done a wonderful performance.

I think he did a correct performance, a good performance.

What upset you on the touchline?

I already gave my point of view regarding this subject. I don’t like to accuse anyone.

Why was Phillips in defence and why did you change shape?

Phillips gave a good performance. When I decided to change him to make the sub, it was a strategic reason, not because of his performance. One of the defensive principles I take into account is that I always play with a third defender when the opponent has two strikers. As they did this I asked my No4 to go as a centre-back. And they I abandoned this idea when the opponent scored and the free man who was covering the defence was Phillips. I told him to play in front of our two centre-backs, I told him to play as a free man but not behind the defender, rather in front of the defenders and I decided that Baker would play closer to Saiz. As you see the tactic is always very boring.

Will you phone Pep tonight to thank him for Harrison?

Of course I will. He already knows that I am thankful. And I don’t need Jack Harrison to score to be thankful.

impressed with Forshaw's recovery?

Actually they gave us a period to recover and he recovered in the time the medical staff told us. But he’s a very big professional. And his professionalism allowed him to come back in time.

Is he 100% fit?

He needs football with pace. And you can get the pace only playing. The same thing Bamford, so we have to take some risks. The players we have are fit, we need them to be fit but also have the pace of the competition, which is why we make them play in the 23s.

The bigger risk is that you put a player in the first-team who doesn’t have the pace of a professional game.

[rigger]

What was the bust up about ??

I didn't even know it happened as I wasn't able to watch or listen yesterday ..

[kk_white]

What was the bust up about ??

I didn't even know it happened as I wasn't able to watch or listen yesterday ..

There wasn't a lot in it. Millwall bench held onto the ball when it was a Leeds throw, though they didn't keep it for long.
It was enough to spark the bench and we equalised in the following passage of play.

Watch here:
http://www.thickaccent.com/2018/09/16/v ... w-v-leeds/

[whitedancer]

do u think mbs tough work ethics in training, are causing
these little niggly injuries,

[CorkWhite]

What was the bust up about ??

I didn't even know it happened as I wasn't able to watch or listen yesterday ..

There wasn't a lot in it. Millwall bench held onto the ball when it was a Leeds throw, though they didn't keep it for long.
It was enough to spark the bench and we equalised in the following passage of play.

Watch here:
http://www.thickaccent.com/2018/09/16/v ... w-v-leeds/

I Love his temper. He does have a right go at em too. The only thing that beats his temper is the lads going down the other end and smashing the goal in which in my opinion is the best way to deal with the Millwall scum. I was delighted with the result and we are clear at the top. Roll on Preston and to maybe getting some daylight between us and the rest. (fingers crossed)

[CorkWhite]

do u think mbs tough work ethics in training, are causing
these little niggly injuries,

There are arguments to say yes and arguments to say no. I think it depends really. What tempo is the training done at? if it's as i suspect at Championship pace then yes i do think that there would be an element of percentage that the training could give some injuries. To be honest though i'm not that worried about them. I believe the team this year are so much more prepared and capable of maintaining the challenge. Were hungrier, confident and we have a swagger to our style of play which i haven't seen in a Leeds team since O'Leary's young guns came into the team.

Injuries happen at every other club and in some cases a lot worse than we have. We have the talent to get the job done.

This is our season....

MOT

[SCOTTISH LEEDS]

Team news

Injury wise, Berardi and Shackleton are getting close. Roofe and Hernandez need more time. Bamford obviously longer. But none of them will be involved tomorrow

On O'Kane breaking his leg

I was not aware of that. I am very sad about it and sad for him. I am ashamed to find this out. I should have got this afternoon faster and that's all I have to say.

Phillips at centre back

I don't think that at the beginning we did it to have three centre backs. When we play with a line of three we don't have to ask Phillips to play in a lower position, we have other possibilities. We have different tactical possibilities that adjust to the game.

On Neil Harris saying Leeds celebrations were a disgrace to English football..

"Everything that happened at the end of the game is clear enough so there is no necessity to explain it....
"If the river has too much water in it, you have to consider the reasons why."
Bielsa answered this in great detail but basically saying you have to consider why Leeds celebrated as they did. Said Leeds were being accused of behaving "as a savage."
Also said that behaviour doesn't relate to whether you are foreign or not

On what makes a good captain?

A captain has to be a good person, the values that our captain transmits are summed up in the fact that Cooper is more interested than the collective well being of the team than his own well being. Our captain is generous to help his team mate and he also has humility. If you combine generosity and humility it makes him an example for all of us and we always have to take into account examples of people who are better than us, this is not linked in to the fact that if he plays well or not. He will still be a great captain even when doesn't play.

On Izzy Brown

It's a very different case, it has been a long time since he played, he still has to recover, he hasn't started to play with the ball, he hasn't played football with us so far. It's impossible to say when he will be fit. It won't be a short time.

Will senior u-23s players feature tomorrow

Yes. I explain again, it's not good that a player plays 45 minutes before another game, even worse than this is when you need a player to go and play a game and he doesn't have the tempo and fitness to play a professional game. It's better to have more activity and having the player closer to his best performance than have a player rested but far away from his best level. The decision I am taking without explaining this would be imprudent.

On Preston

Preston is a special team because Preston's players have the skills to move the ball. They have a position in the table that they do not deserve. I always have the feeling of confidence, it doesn't matter who we are playing against, I always think we can win, it's part of the DNA of our profession.

Do you sense promotion is possible?

I see that we are getting stronger in each game. It's not convenient to talk about the final position when we have just played seven games, it's too early to draw conclusions after just seven games. Any conclusion that you take right now would not be a solid one because football is a game where you have many surprises. If you take into account the last game, the seventh game for all the teams and if you look at all the results, if we compare your questions to the reality of each team, it's very hard to make conclusions and draw conclusions taking into account all the things happening. We all think that when we make early conclusions, means that we have a lot of knowledge, and football is the first game in the world regarding it's unpredictable aspect, you can't anticipate the results in football. The day when you can predict the results in football, football won't be that attractive and technology is trying ti make many efforts in that sense and I don't think we should go in this way because football is famous because of it's unpredictable aspect.

On being top

From my point of view, I can't talk the name of everyone, it's not a pressure and it's not something I take as positive. In each game we have the obligation to win as in professional football. When you have a good performance people expect things from you, I don't think the position in the table generates pressure or makes things easier for us, we will always have ambition to win.

Showing qualities of a promotion winning team?

We need a longer period to evaluate if our team has the skills to get promotion.
There is a difference between the first games we played and the last three games. The injuries and the absences of some players are part of the difficulties you face in this competition, all teams face them and we are facing this kind of problem right now. But this difficulty was visible because all teams will have ti play games without the presence of important players so the difficulties we are facing, the other teams have the same ones, maybe in a different period, before us or after us, but they will face them.

How important to get back to winning ways?

It's not a good habit to stop winning, apart from the meaning and the features of the draws, our aspiration is to win again. No matter of the results before, to win is a necessity.