Eddie Nketiah has defended criticism of Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United training methods after Jesse Marsch blamed the club’s injury problems on ‘overtraining’. Plenty of supporters were quick to make their feelings known about the American’s comments as they felt as though it ignored some of the many achievements from the Argentine's tenure at the club.
In defence of Marsch, it isn’t anything that others haven’t already said but it understandably left a bitter taste in the mouths of the Elland Road faithful. While admitting that the intensity was like nothing else he had seen previously, Nketiah felt its benefits in terms of development outweighed the risk of potential injury.
“It’s difficult to say whether it’s wrong because I felt like he was getting the best out of the players that he had,” the former Leeds loan star told The Beautiful Game Podcast. “Everyone was improving a lot, even myself.
Read more: Jesse Marsch points finger at 'overtraining' for Leeds United's injury problems
“I’m not going to lie, the training was hard. Sometimes I like to go out to eat [after training] but I can’t remember any time going out to eat, I was going back home to sleep! I was coming back from training knackered.
“That was the first time I really felt like I’ve been pushed out of my comfort zone. Almost every day I was coming in thinking I need to rest so that I could be ready for training again.
“It was good, obviously it’s difficult because you see that they get a lot of injuries because over time it’s hard to sustain that intensity whilst playing like that every game. It’s difficult but, in terms of a development point of view, it helps a lot.”
Nketiah struggled for game time in the half-season that he spent at Leeds so for him to come out with such praise for Bielsa’s methods says a lot about just how useful he found it. Incidentally, just as he looked set for a run in the team on the back of a few strong cameo appearances during the 2019/20 campaign, a training injury halted his progress.
Upon his return to training following the issue, he once again failed to break into the starting XI and was subsequently recalled by Arsenal at the beginning of the January transfer window. In spite of all that, he continues to claim that his spell at Elland Road was extremely beneficial for his overall development.
