Leeds United face the prospect of six games without victory this weekend, if they are unable to negotiate three points against Antonio Conte's Tottenham Hotspur.
There was no mention of Spurs in Marcelo Bielsa's pre-match press conference on Friday morning, though, with the Argentine preferring to speak retrospectively about the Whites' most recent defeat to Liverpool and trends he has observed this season.
He did provide information on returning centre-back duo Robin Koch and Diego Llorente, who should both be available this weekend.
However, Bielsa also conceded Patrick Bamford, Kalvin Phillips and Liam Cooper would be unlikely to make a return during the first week of March, as was initially prescribed.
Here is every word Bielsa said in his pre-match press conference.
How worried are you about the club's current position?
Very worried. The worry is proportionate to the results we've been obtaining.
Are you feeling pressure personally? How do you take it?
I'm a normal person I do a job that has a lot of repercussion. I feel like all the people are not able to offer the results that are expected. The situation I'm going through is similar to that of a common person when they're not able to achieve what they should. The repercussion of my task is the big difference. I'm used to living through these situations.
Have you considered doing things any differently, maybe defensively? Do you need to change things?
Any explanation I may give - I try not to give excuses but I explain - when you go through negative moments any explanation you give is rejected. What I said is that in our squad, the positions of right centre back, left centre-back and defensive mid have five players who occupy those positions. Those positions are occupied by Llorente, Koch, Phillips, Pascal and Cooper. The sixth player we've added for that position is Hjelde who is a young player. Leeds and their planification cannot have two players of a high level for every position so in this case we have five players at the top level and a sixth one, a young one. Those six players, at the same time, five were missing. So that situation I resolved it by putting Ayling as a centre-back and putting Forshaw as a defensive mid. In a game like the last one, the players that shone the most were precisely those two. In the game against Manchester United, the same. Sometimes a resolution of the problems depends on those who are available. But of course you guys will have other arguments over whether the marking is personal or not, if we should play in our own half or in the opponent's half or if we should try and manage the ball less so we should lose it less. All of the things that when they came out well, were praised, when they come out wrong, they demand it of you and of course that is normal. So what you're asking me is 'are you going to play in your own half?' if we're going to mark zonally if we're going to stop having management of the ball and by those paths are we going to improve our defensive function? To that you can also add defending set pieces better.
In these four years, I've received criticism or demands that are exactly the same. In this case they are a lot more justified because the consequences of what's been going badly are a lot bigger. But they're the same problems that at some point we've already suffered and were able to overcome and when you go through moments like this when the confidence is lost on the leader which is natural, it's logical, how can I defend myself with a team that has conceded the most goals in the Premier League? Not all of the errors for that to happen, have happened, and I daily try to resolve and in the most difficult situation, because I reiterate: when you're the conductor in a bad situation nobody trusts in what you're saying. What I'm also sure of is that if I stop doing what I believe in, which is what you're asking, the situation instead of improving is going to be even worse. The question is not of changing how we proceed but that our procedures work. The procedures that I propose are those I believe in and as my function is to convince I can't convince by trying to do procedures that I don't believe in. Anything that I say in this moment the only thing that I say will generate is opinions against it. There are numerous resources to shorten the difference with respect to the opponent you're coming up against that can be utilised that we never utilise because I think you have to interpret football in a different way.
I insist anything I say right now is going to be read as an excuse or it's going to be criticised ferociously, with the ferocity the moment deserves of course, but one thing I am convinced that what we do try, I am going to try that we do it better. It's not abandoning procedures that have been improved or that have come out in practice, how I think the sporting crises are resolved. Anything that I say now, I'm already imagining the responses that discredit what I say because of course I've been doing this job a long time and I've been through this dialogue many times, with short answers because anything I would say will have a strong response that we've conceded over 50 goals or exceptional situations, exceptional responses. So I know that I don't have any options to be exempt through my responses. What corresponds and it's good that it's that way, is to generate results.
Keeping faith in footballing principles, but how difficult is it to keep that faith in the face of the criticism coming your way at the moment?
It's not an option. It's the only way possible. These players, they've already demonstrated they have the level to play in the Premier League. The style, the model has already shown it can work and be imposed in the Premier League. The effort an the willingness of the team, it can't be judged, it can't be doubted because they've been the most intense team in their performance in their two years in the Premier League. So what is very clear, that with all those arguments, virtues, capacities, weapons, I don't manage to obtain or achieve the same as before, so at the same time what I'm achieving is worse. So there's two paths: abandon everything that you do and to change the profile of the team, or to try and correct what is done badly and to obtain from this group what they're capable of doing. Evidently, I'm not managing to achieve it.
Huge expectation on return of key players such as Phillips and Cooper. How concerned are you about the burden that places on those players when they have been missing for quite a long time?
If you listen to the explanation I gave, you're missing five players of six to cover three positions. That problem precisely, generates difficult solutions. I say this, the way you interpret the things I say is that for the first time I'm giving an excuse and I'm not giving excuses, I'm just explaining the reality. An institution like Leeds can't have two players per position that cost £20 million. They can have 18 players of that level. So when five or six are missing, it produces a difficulty. But the positions that were resolved, two players who don't usually play in those positions play there and they were the two best players, so this is not a problem of the absence of the players, but if in a certain moment five of the six players in the same position are missing it's natural that the external observers like you guys fix the claim in the absence of Phillips, Cooper and Bamford. I insist we can have exactly the same problems with Phillips, Cooper and Bamford, but as it's they who are missing, the focus on the problem is on the return of those players. In the same sense, James shouldn't be the No. 9, make Gelhardt play, Tyler Roberts should be a No. 9, make Rodrigo Moreno play - what does that mean, the one that's not there is the one that is solution?
How confident are you that sticking to the principles you've described, you can get Leeds out of trouble?
It's the only path, the only way I know. Of course every game that we play, I imagine that we have true possibilities of winning. That's exactly how I felt about Liverpool. Imagination prior to the game being played like every manager does, I thought we had resources to win the game and the game we played against Man United, allowed us to believe that we could beat Liverpool - but we lost 6-0. So I always imagine, in what way we should do things and with what interpreters should we assume the model of play to manage to win the game.
Can you tell us where Phillips, Cooper and Bamford are in their recuperation and how soon it will be until they're back for the first-team?
There's not a fixed date. The prediction that they were going to be available early March and how they are right now, that doesn't seem like it will be the case.
Is Patrick Bamford back on the grass? Will we see him before the end of this season?
No, he's not on the grass and probably we will see him before the end of the season.
Do you feel Klich and Rodrigo can provide adequate defensive cover as a pair?
Evidently the midfield of Klich and Rodrigo is very offensive, but if you pay attention the midfield in the second half against Man United was Forshaw, Klich and Rodrigo and those 45 minutes were some of the best football we've played lately. Do you coincide with what I've just said?
Yes.
It's not important that I say it, or that you coincide. The public opinion that is generated, is that these 45 minutes have generated that - it's added that you were in agreement and I was in agreement. To answer what you say, you say to me that there are people who think Klich and Rodrigo are defensively unbalanced when they play. In the same way a lot of people would say the best 45 minutes we've played lately is those 45 minutes against Man United with those two in the midfield, so there are two realities. The 45 minutes against Manchester United and two days apart, the first 45 minutes against Liverpool, so which is the truth? Or what do we have to do, do we have to deform what works before it stops working? The thing is, in this dialogue, when I stop answering, the arguments continue. What was I to do, break down or break up the best thing we did against Man United? We never recovered the ball better than in the second half versus Man United.
The midfield of Forshaw, Klich and Rodrigo was of extreme aggression. Two days after that reality stops being what we've just described, so you say there's a lot of people who have this opinion. Those same people are not having an opinion after Man United, they have an opinion after Liverpool so if the opinion was after Manchester United, the opinion would be wrong but having an opinion after Liverpool their opinion would be the correct one? And in the middle, you have to make a decision, five of the six players who help us conform a structure that is more aggressive and all of this data, people have to consider it. Perhaps the pretension is wrong, but the person who is asking the question for the people, they should consider these details.
Goals affecting confidence. How can you protect and rebuild their confidence?
The first thing I do is to say to them something I believe is true. I never use elements that I don't believe are true to change the state of a player. There's occasions confidence is restored by explaining, there's sometimes the confidence needs to be restored by facing the reality crudely. A person not only believes in themselves, if the person conducting them paints over the consequences, sometimes you just have to say things as they are. For every moment there are different perceptions, different solutions and you find out the effect of those things, not when you do them but when you see the results that are obtained after. I reiterate after the game vs Man United I was full of confidence and we lost 6-0. After the game against Newcastle which I felt was a game we deserved to win clearly, I was with justified confidence given what we had done against Newcastle and we lost 3-0 against Everton so that's something that is true, when you don't win the games you deserve the win and against Newcastle we deserved to win, and against Man United we didn't deserve to lose, the confidence is lower of course.
The players are like every human being, they give their all for those who are conducting them with a promise that it's understood. I'm gonna do what you ask of me because in exchange of that we promise that we win. When we don't manage to accomplish that promise, it would be naive to think the confidence in the leader is intact. That's to say that's the question that's missing if the players are slowly losing the faith in what a coach is proposing. In no way have I verified this because I measure it by the effort they put in but it would be naive to think in a moment of weakness like we're in, the faith, confidence and credibility is the same. What is true is that the credibility in what I do is lower and weakened by everything. The only one who believes blindly in myself is me. And apart from that I do that because it's the best option to come back and apart from that it's what every common person does in their day to day. They face their adversity by insisting, because it's the only option. Ask any worker how they face adversity and they tell you it's this way. I'm alone and I believe in what I'm capable of doing.
Fitness of Diego Llorente? Any other players who might be available?
Llorente and Koch are available. And with respect to the knock that Koch received to the head, I never said it wasn't dramatic for a player to receive a knock on the head. I said that knocks on the head have consequences that are very grave and dramatic. But what I did say is we shouldn't dramatise such decisions that don't deserve to be dramatised.
Are you saying you would never walk away from Leeds mid-season and you're too invested in this club?
I never presume of fortitude. But what I have clear is the more adverse the situation is, the more I fortify myself to face it.
