MB'S PRESS CONFERENCES

Leeds United news here, transfer rumours, club affairs, players, fans, etc.
Specific match discussions should go in the category below.
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SCOTTISH LEEDS
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Re: MB'S PRESS CONFERENCES

Post by SCOTTISH LEEDS »

Peacock-Farrell

He made a mistake in the first goal. This is in evidence. In the eight games before he played better than he played against Birmingham.

Derbies in Argentina

What I saw in Argentina, the emotions when training, I can’t have the same emotions here.

Where does Championship rank for him globally?

It’s a beautiful competition. Football starts with the fans and with the stadiums. Football is also about the passion the fans feel about it and then you have the game, the beauty of the game, the spectacle you offer to the fans.

Here in England the passion is on a high level and the spectacle, the beauty is sometimes good, sometimes bad as in all leagues around the world.

Forshaw - unique qualities?

Forshaw can play as Klich and Klich can play as Forshaw does. Klich is a complete player, he can play in each level of the pitch, in defence he attacks, he can play in the axis and in the sides.

Forshaw is the same kind of player. He’s very dynamic, he’s flexible. When he has to build offensive responses he is as implicated as when he has to build defensive ones. Their physical capacity are very important. They are not players that can make a difference by themselves. They make the difference associated with their team-mates. They can’t do what Samu Saiz does, the only player who can do what he does is himself.

They all midfielders, but Forshaw and Klich are different to Saiz.

Always protect your players no matter what?

I think I gave some strong arguments to explain why I was responsible and you’re asking me a question, I’m not talking about your intention, I don’t deserve to be asked this and I’m going to explain why.

When the head coach says he’s responsible and doesn’t give arguments, what they are saying is the real responsibility is the players. Because if you don’t explain why the people who listen to this say it’s not the head coach, it’s the players’ fault.

I reject this kind of practise. That’s why I am surprised. I gave arguments why I was responsible. I don’t know if the arguments are right or wrong, but they are solid. You have substance in the argument.
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Re: MB'S PRESS CONFERENCES

Post by Deleted User 728 »

SCOTTISH LEEDS wrote:Phillips - difficult being withdrawn early twice

I decided to substitute Kalvin. This does not draw the portrait of Kalvin, it draws my own. If you deeply analyse the decision I took you will say I corrected a mistake I made. For me, it’s a very difficult situation for two reasons. The last thing I want is to hurt a player as noble as Phillips because he’s very generous. I can’t make the same mistake again. If I think the game is not well designed and I don’t take a solution, I make a double mistake because the first mistake is I made a mistake and I wouldn’t dare to correct the mistake. I take the decisions I think are the best ones.

We could say ‘poor Phillips’ but the people who understand football say ‘what a bad decision Bielsa took because he has to change after 30 minutes a decision he took.’

When I didn’t substitute Phillips, he didn’t make any mistake. BY making the change I made the mistake.

I think he dropped a ballack in trying to play Kalvin as an auxiliary centre-half.
He's not a stopper, is he ?
Same way Eric Dier is not a deep-playmaker. That's the same situation in reverse because he IS a centre-back by trade.

I love the way football allows individuals to develop - look at Gareth Bale's journey, or John Charles, Tom Finney, Ruud Gullit, Glenn Hoddle, Paul Warhurst and Ashley Young - but some players are simply not suited to certain roles.

At least he's held his hands up and that should be the last time we see Phillips play at the back.

Maybe it'll also lead to a crowd-appeasing defensive signing in the next transfer window too :thumbup:
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Re: MB'S PRESS CONFERENCES

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Always protect his players, not Birmingham...

I never say something if I cannot give arguments for it because otherwise people would suspect me. Whenever I say something I try to give arguments and when I say something, I am saying what I think. I don’t say what is good to say, but there’s something I should honestly tell you. You cannot be a leader if you don’t assume, publicly, the responsibility. You can’t be a leader if you say the responsibility is the team’s.

Thats it for MB press conference today.
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Re: MB'S PRESS CONFERENCES

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rigger wrote:
SCOTTISH LEEDS wrote:Phillips - difficult being withdrawn early twice

I decided to substitute Kalvin. This does not draw the portrait of Kalvin, it draws my own. If you deeply analyse the decision I took you will say I corrected a mistake I made. For me, it’s a very difficult situation for two reasons. The last thing I want is to hurt a player as noble as Phillips because he’s very generous. I can’t make the same mistake again. If I think the game is not well designed and I don’t take a solution, I make a double mistake because the first mistake is I made a mistake and I wouldn’t dare to correct the mistake. I take the decisions I think are the best ones.

We could say ‘poor Phillips’ but the people who understand football say ‘what a bad decision Bielsa took because he has to change after 30 minutes a decision he took.’

When I didn’t substitute Phillips, he didn’t make any mistake. BY making the change I made the mistake.

I think he dropped a ballack in trying to play Kalvin as an auxiliary centre-half.
He's not a stopper, is he ?
Same way Eric Dier is not a deep-playmaker. That's the same situation in reverse because he IS a centre-back by trade.

I love the way football allows individuals to develop - look at Gareth Bale's journey, or John Charles, Tom Finney, Ruud Gullit, Glenn Hoddle, Paul Warhurst and Ashley Young - but some players are simply not suited to certain roles.

At least he's held his hands up and that should be the last time we see Phillips play at the back.

Maybe it'll also lead to a crowd-appeasing defensive signing in the next transfer window too :thumbup:
MB said in his press conference its an Unchanged side for Friday night.

The problem with Kalvin on Saturday was he didnt sit and protect Cooper and Pontus and was badly out of position for both goals, he has to learn to sit and just pass to those around him dont go chasing as per swansea and birmingham.
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Re: MB'S PRESS CONFERENCES

Post by birkybullufc »

I would say Jansson was more culpable for the first goal and Douglas for the second.
Follow the cause not the leaders.
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Re: MB'S PRESS CONFERENCES

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Marcelo, how disappointed are you not to win the game?

Yes, truly disappointed.
If football was fair, what would have been a fair score today?

I’ll leave that to your analysis. What would be a fair result?
Three-one, maybe 4-1. However, 25 shots on goal, I am told, I haven’t checked it, 25 shots on goal. Was it poor finishing or was it good defence from Sheffield Wednesday?

I don’t like to judge the performance of the opponents, but the fact we had 25 chances to score talks about what we deserve.

Their goal. Defensively, was there anything you could have done better to stop such an amazing goal?

It’s a common action from throw-ins. The player back to goal puts in front of the goal the player who is close to him. And then the shooting, we can’t link it to the mistakes we made, but to the virtues, the skills of the opponent.
Conversely, your own goal was very good. How pleased, from a team point of view, were you with that goal?

There’s a feature that explains the result. Usually, we need three chances to score one goal. This statistic is common to teams that lead their competitions.

In the previous game against Birmingham [City] we needed eight chances to score one goal and it tonight’s game we needed 15 chances to score one goal.

When you evaluate the performance of a team we take into account the chances you create and then we see, we analyse if the team is efficient enough and this gives strength to the performance.

Obviously, we can’t say we are satisfied with the result because if we did that we would be ignoring a factor that is very important in football, which is the impact you have in a game.

In this game and in the previous game we only got one point out of six possible points. If we took into account who deserved to win I guess we would have deserved something else than one point.
Marcelo, you’re obviously disappointed with the result, but how pleased are you, you talked about a reaction to the Birmingham game, with the way the team have played tonight in comparison to how they played last Saturday?

We played very well, but versus Birmingham we didn’t play very well, but the link between the two games is all the work we need to create chances to score.

The goals the opponents scored had less creative needs than our goals. We need great actions to get to the opponent’s box. The difficulties the opponent has to overcome to score against us are not as high as our difficulties.

Is that, possibly, as well as your team have played under you so far?

I think so. We also played other games at that level. When we won versus Preston [North End] we played very well too, when we played versus Norwich [City] we played well too, but in those cases the score was different.
Do you expect for Hull [City] on Tuesday any of your injured players will be back? You said Kemar Roofe was close this week.

I don’t think so. I am sure no-one will be available for the Hull game.
Marcelo, do you have any concerns at all about one win from the last five matches?

Of course.
Can you elaborate on that? Why aren’t the wins coming, do you think? What’s been missing from the last five games?

I think we analysed this game. We deeply analysed the previous game. We also analysed the game against Millwall. It’s hard for me to sum up, in one concept, the common elements of five games.

When you look at the impact Mateusz Klich has had on this season so far it’s been quite remarkable. He’s made his trademark goals like tonight. Can you sum up how important he’s been to this team?

I have exactly the same opinion as you. He is a very influential player in the team. The space that he has now inside the team is linked to what he brings to the team.

Actually, it’s more his responsibility, his influence inside the team than the work that I did with him. He was very patient during the pre-season work and he tolerated many mistakes I have made evaluating him as a footballer.

During the pre-season he even played as a centre-back, so obviously was very patient with the analysis I did of him.

Then things happened, Adam Forshaw got injured and he has improved on each game, he was playing better.

There were scenes of wild celebration when Klich scored tonight, did you allow yourself a few moments to enjoy those scenes of celebration from the fans?

I’m used to the fact that all goals are celebrated with a lot of noise. Did you see something particular this time?

No more than usual, it was just quite a striking moment for the fans tonight.

I’m glad that the fans celebrate Klich’s goal because he’s a player who makes many efforts. He deserves the celebration from the fans.
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Re: MB'S PRESS CONFERENCES

Post by SCOTTISH LEEDS »

Frustrating not to be winning?

If we insist, we will get what we deserve. Sometimes you do the right thing and don’t get the result and sometimes you do the wrong thing and get the result.

If you dont do the right thing you cant suppose you will get the right result in the long-term. On the other hand, if you do things right you will get what you deserve.

Lots of chances - need a clincical edge?

We work on the finishing. If you are efficient during the training session it does not guarantee being efficient during games. Ususlly, we as head coaches work on creating chances to score. You can’t have an influence on the result of a game, you can work on chances but you can;t work on how good you finish. The leading teams in all competitions, usually they need three chances to score a goal. I was making the difference between the elading teams and the big teams because the leading teams are not always big teams. If you are very efficient you can leasd the table, even if you’re not a big team and if you’re not efficient, even if you’re a big team with lots of chances to score you might not occupy the rank you deserve. In a nutshell, efficiency is very important.

Roofe out

No chance for Hull.

Expecting from Hull

I couldn’t really tell you. For some teams it’s obvious, like Middlesbrough or Millwall. Against Hull they can play like Middlesbrough, they can play like Derby County or maybe it will be a mix of both styles. This is what you say when you don’t know the answer.

Impact of Roofe and Hernandez absence on finishing

I’m aware of the capacity of the skills of the two players you mentioned.

With the Tyler Roberts and Harrison we have solutions for finishing well. What I could tell you is 70 per cent of the changes during a game are with offensive players. In the last competition, Premiership, last season 70 per cent of subs were linked to wingers, nine and 10.

This tells you the creative players and the strikers are responsible for the most difficult task during a game. I also can tell you I would like to have all the offensive players at my disposal because this allows you to rotate that gives several solutions to one position.

That’s the analysis I make.
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Difficult late in games without them?

I can’t answer to this kind of question and I also think your condition is not to ask me that question. I’m used to listening to your questions and I have the following thought. We had 15 chances to score, if we had kept the average we had before we would have scored four goals.

It’s hard to give a response because that means I would be saying Roofe, Pablo and Bamford never miss a goal and it’s very hard to say something like that. I would also have to make the affirmation Roofe, Pablo and Bamford would have created 15 chances to score. For me it’s very difficult to account for these hypotheses because the creative play and concretising the offensive chances you have are the thing last provisable (?) in football.

That’s why I try to avoid these questions. I’m usually listening to your questions, this point of view I’m giving you, you know this opinion is right and you don’t need me to tell you it’s right.

You can’t predict the offensive play. I don’t know if my answer was clear.

Easier for you to have these players available?

The two chances Tyler Roberts had against Preston, you could compare them - they are similar to the Roofe goal at Derby with the cross, also...

Tyler’s second goal is similar to Kemar’s goal...

Tyler is good in front of goal, I think Roofe is good at finishing, Bamford too. I don’t think when we miss a goal someone on the bench or unavailable could have score that goal. If I had the choice of course I would want more players. I miss the presence of BaMFORD, Roofe and Pablo.

What I regret is the three injuries happened at the same time because when they were in the team we scored more goals than when we were not in the team. We had more points with them than without them.

Even if I take into account this reality it’s very hard to say we had points without them.

Rotation - believe in it?

When a team regularly wins, nobody is tired. They all want to win. When you lose seven games we take into account the performance more than the state of the player.

That’s why I think we use rotations more for the performance than if someone is tired, You could reply to me when a player is tired his performance is not very good, but the player’s good performance in one game never says he is tired next.

Injuries

They will be available for the next game after the break. These three will be back then.

What have you made of the U23s this year? And what do you look for when you watch them?

For example today, 6 players who will be substitutes tomorrow played in today’s game. We could say that we have 18 starters. And usually four are missing because they are suspended, injured and you substitute these players missing with young players. Shackleton, Pearce and Clarke are youngsters that come from the u23s. And Leeds has a tradition of forming players and I like to collaborate with the project of bringing young players to the first team and if you don’t watch the games of the youngsters, you can’t see how good they are.
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Re: MB'S PRESS CONFERENCES

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Marcelo, was it tighter than it should have been?

The game was harder in the last 10 minutes. Until the last 10 minutes we controlled the game, we controlled the possession, we controlled the field. The substitutions that we made left us with less possession.

Shackleton is more a full-back than a winger, Dallas plays more on the right than the left and Klich is a midfielder less offensive than Samu.

And Tyler Roberts did a great effort. In the last 10 minutes we didn’t dominate the ball. In the second half we conceded just one chance. When you just win with just a goal difference, there is always the possibility of conceding a goal.

The starting XI of the opponent was a more offensive one. This made the game more complicated than it was.
It was a great goal, but were you worried you weren't going to score despite all the chances?

We were not efficient enough. We talked about the lack of efficiency in the previous press conference. And when you don’t score more than one goal, we closed the game with a different feeling than the one that deserved the whole game.

Any early news on what Barry Douglas' injury might be?

He has a muscular problem because he slided in one action. We don’t know how serious it is.
How does it feel to be top of the league? And can you stay there?

We’ll have to demonstrate that we can stay top of the league. We’ll have to demonstrate that we deserve it. If we take into account the last two games we should have three more points than what we have, actually.

The ranking doesn’t illustrate what you deserve, but what you got. So that’s very difficult to say.

This is Tyler Roberts' first season in the Championship and he's only 19 - how impressed have you been with him?

He is a young player, he has less than 20 years.. He’s not impressed by the competition, in spite of his young age. He has adapted himself very easily. From a technical point of view, his answers are always positive ones, also from a physical point of view. And I think he’s a player with character and personality. He can express his virtues, his skills. This is something very important for a young player. He is a a young player and a serious player and is not impressed by the competition.

You changed your formation a couple of times tonight, what were you trying to achieve?

You saw the opponent team had five different structures during the game. They played with a line of three, with a line of four. With two number nines, one number nine, with three midfielders in the same line, with two defensive midfielders with one number 10 behind the number nine.

This made us make Phillips do many adaptations. He adapted himself with a lot of experience and didn’t have any problems to face the new situations. He played as a number four in front of Jansson and Cooper, he played in the line of three and also in the same line as Klich with two defensive midfielders, with Samu in front.

And he played also as a four in front of Jansson, Cooper, behind Samu and Klich.

So he has a capacity to adapt from a tactical point of view that is very interresting. Because in all the zones he defended well and he used the ball well.

Are you seeing enough of Samu Saiz on the ball at the moment? Is he having enough possession to affect matches?

Saiz hasn't scored a goal so far. We can see that is a deficit but he is a player with a lot of influence in the building of our offensive actions. Among our midfielders he assumes the role of being the fourth offensive player in our team. And he also receives the first pass in the most difficult zones in the pitch. If we didn't have him in the pitch we would fill it immediately.
Saiz was kept on a close leash by Hull

For example at the end of this game today when he was not on the pitch it was hard for us to bring the ball to the opponent's side. And we couldn't build offensive actions without him that would have been a relief from our defensive duty that our opponent made us realise.

Sometimes we see from a player things that he does not do. And we don't pay enough attention to the things he allows his team-mates to do.
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Re: MB'S PRESS CONFERENCES

Post by SCOTTISH LEEDS »

Douglas injury?

He won’t be available for this coming game.

What does that mean?

It’s a difficulty not to have all of the players available. We have the solution of Dallas and before Douglas arrived he played an important role as a full-back.

We also have Tom Pearce in the same position. Without minimising the impact of Douglas we are always prepared for solutions.

Adkins's praise on Tuesday

I thank him for what he said. And especially when it comes from someone like him who knows the league so well, but this increases the obligation to prove the good words said about us.

Statement being top in the break

We lost some points during our journey and they were not linked to the absences. Especially in the games versus Sheffield and Birmingham. I wouldn’t argue we lost these points because we didn’t have enough players.

I always have a lot of consideration for those not available, but we have to be ready to resolve the absences we can have. The performances of Jansson, Roberts and Harrison are satisfactory.

For the next game I hope we can keep improving.

Smaller squad he wanted - justified with injuries?

I would say the opposite because we now have more absences than what we thought. I always think as an average four players would be missing for each game, now we are above this average, but I have a lot of consideration for the work done by the academy.

It allowed us to count on players like Shackleton, Clarke, Edmondson, Shaughnessy. They are covering the absences of our more experienced players.

Severity of Douglas injury

He will be available to play after the international break, but I couldn’t assure you that.

Long penalty wait - 49 matches

I like the hard way the referees work in England. The tempo of the games is linked to the fact English football is noble(?). I say English football and not English players because we have many foreign players here.

Obviously the fans don’t celebrate speculation and people trying to cheat. That’s why the players read this message and doesn’t simulate. It’s a lot easier for the referee not to evaluate any simulation.

He has the conditions that allows him not to doubt when he sees an action. I always think if the referee takes the right or wrong decision, they always need to be supported by the actors in football because their job is very difficult.

They deserve respect when they take the right decision and deserve consideration when they make a mistake. Those of us who take an opinion on the referee have more resources than they have when they take the decision.

Brentford style

It’s a team that needs the ball. You have many teams who feel comfortable without the ball than with the ball and this is not a criticism. Brentford wants the ball, they know what to do when they have the ball. They want to play, they don’t want to lose time.

When we don’t play it’s not a good thing for the side because the best thing Brentford does is to play football. If I said they have a style similar to ours after having described the opponent’s style as I just said it would be pretentious for us.

I describe their style, but I don’t take the virtues I mentioned about Brentford’s football for us.

Good game?

There is something very constant and a high percentage and then you can figure you out when you’re watching the game as a spectator. When you say good things about a player the next action, the next player makes a mistake. I don’t know if this is frequent here. In Argentina it’s very common, it happens all the time and those who do the same job as you, whenever this happens they refer to the conclusion I just made. That’s why I wouldn’t like to make any comment. I imagine it will be an attractive game, but I don’t want to risk it with my opinion.

We call it the commentator's curse

Games are related and explained by two different type of person, like here. One tells and the other interprets. When we say good things about a player the following action he does something wrong.

That’s why sometimes you have to ironically say a good thing just for something bad to happen...

That’s a message that football sends us. When you anticipate something it doesn’t mean you know what’s going to happen because we all think we know what’s going to happen.

The football warns us it’s the most popular sport because it’s unpredictable.

How do United compare to opponents so far

We have teams like Middlesbrough, they are very strong in the aerial game, in the 50-50 balls, they are strong and you are sometimes afraid of them.

You have teams like Derby County, just to give an example, they have other features linked to an offensive process that is different. There’s a style I like a lot, Preston’s style, and they are in the lower part of the table.

When the result becomes the only argument the opinion does not matter anymore. When you evaluate what a team produces as an exclusive argument we would not need any press conference because we wouldn’t have any subject to talk about.

We have a situation where we talk about football, but we still consider the result most important.

Because we always have to adapt to the important laws that rule. It’s not efficient if you do the opposite. It’s hard for me to defend things...

Preston and Brentford, they have a similar style, with young players with an attractive football, but they had different results with a similar style.

I don’t think we should take my opinion into account. but to be sure of what you’re saying we need to see a lot more.

Has Bielsa ever had a cabbage thrown at him?

I don’t see this is as barbaric as you see it. This means I have bad habits and you have good habits.

On Adkins's comments

The destinatory of these words should not be me, it should be the players, but I accept the good words and I am thankful for the good words of Adkins.

When you reject good words you can think people are falsely modest. I hate false modesty because you want people to think the opposite of what you are saying.

For example, you could say with the same players, the head coach is having better results and this is not true because the last season, at the same time, after 11 games Leeds had a better ranking. What confirms my opinion is we always have to be thankful to people who say nice things, especially when it’s a colleague who has a specialised view on...

Even more when it’s an experienced head coach like the one of Hull or Middlesbrough. Having said that, I only wish we will deserve the same good words at the end of this championship because we have many things to prove, to demonstrate that has not happened so far.

Been here four months - enjoyed the culture?

This is a countryside region. Am I right? <Yes, in parts>

I’m a countryside man more than a city man. And I like fish and chips, but I like even more the Argentina meat.

Bed in the office? How many hours a week studying football in his office?

Apart from football I don’t know how to do many things. My life is summed up by football and family. Football has taught me, but to understand it better, it is better to watch a good movie or read a good book.

It’s better to read a good book or watch a movie than insist on the topic of football because when you insist you make many efforts, but don’t take a step forward. The kids do that with their hair, but when you observe and watch football in an exaggerated way, you don’t improve. The obsession is described as a virtue.

We identify obsession with work. When I look obsessively at my work I know I am close to a failure.
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