Former Leeds United midfielder Johnny Giles has likened the club’s performance in the 3-0 win over Chelsea to that of their best under Marcelo Bielsa. The Whites produced their best display since the appointment of Jesse Marsch in February as they dismantled Chelsea at Elland Road to move up to third in the Premier League.
Leeds ran over 10km more than their opponents, with the press led by the likes of Tyler Adams and Brenden Aaronson causing the visitors all sorts of problems. And it was Aaronson’s work rate that set Leeds on their way, as he forced Edouard Mendy into a dreadful error to score his first goal for the club.
Speaking in an interview with Off the Ball, Giles reserved special praise for Marsch as to how he has managed to rediscover the side’s intensity and believes the win was very well deserved.
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He said: “It was very good. I thought they’d be struggling against Chelsea, who are one of the better teams and were very good the week before against Spurs. But Leeds were very good, especially in midfield, they signed three new lads in there – Tyler Adams, Marc Roca and Brenden Aaronson.
“I’ve never seen them play before and they were very good. Their performance against Chelsea was excellent, totally outplayed Chelsea despite the stupid comments from Tuchel. He’s come out with a good few stupid comments in recent times, he said they deserved to win the match but they were well outplayed.
“Chelsea started OK but the goalkeeper made a bad mistake as we saw but Leeds were the better team. They played like Bielsa’s team at their best, in the latter stages under Bielsa players were overtrained and he wasn’t getting a response from them – but they looked a Bielsa team to me against Chelsea.
“What Marsch has done is tone it down the training, in other words not doing it day in day out like Bielsa was doing, he’s doing it on certain days and giving the lads a break to have enough energy to go and what needs to be done on matchdays. That’s a very clever thing he’s done because they looked like a Bielsa team there.
“The problem with Bielsa is they did run out of steam at the end of his time at Leeds but he looks like he’s got them doing it, but not every day to leave some energy for what needs to be done. They did it well against Chelsea, well deserved win.”
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