Marcelo Bielsa must be a football director’s dream to work with, given the Argentine’s insistence on making do with what he has instead of demanding that the club splash the cash. Indeed, Bielsa’s footballing philosophy is built on improving players and getting the best out of a squad that he has been given
You only have to look at what the 65-year-old has done with Kalvin Phillips over the past three years to get an understanding of the immense satisfaction Bielsa gets from improving players. When the Argentine initially came to the club, Phillips was very much on the periphery of the first-team squad and many fans wouldn’t have blinked an eye had he been sold. If we’re being brutally honest, the Leeds-born midfielder was a decidedly average Championship player.
Fast forward three years and Phillips will be appearing in a semi-final of the Euros with England. Tellingly, prior to the July 7 matchup, the answer to the question
what are the odds on England v Denmark had Phillips and the Three Lions reaching the final at a mere 8/11. It has been an extraordinary 36 months for Phillips and a rise to the top that very few saw coming. Most people, of course, would agree that a lot of it is down to the influence Bielsa has had on him.
Naturally, Phillips hasn't been the only one to benefit from Bielsa’s coaching at Leeds with Ezgjan Alioski being another whose transformation also resembles night and day. The North Macedonian
arrived at Leeds from FC Lugano in 2017 and did very little to get the Leeds fans off their seats, initially, but his departure in the summer of 2021 has been a terribly bitter pill to swallow for the Elland Road faithful after a sensational season in the Premier League.
The question has to be: will Leeds regret
not reaching a deal with their standout left-back?
These things often come down to money but you would have to imagine that Leeds could certainly afford to keep Alioski and meet his wage demands if they were desperate to. It also seems distinctly unlike Bielsa to spend a great deal of money on a position that he already has covered but that’s what Leeds have done by bringing in Junior Firpo from Barcelona to fill the void Alioski will leave.
Perhaps it will turn out to be a good deal for Leeds, given the fire sale going on at the Nou Camp and, in reality, it may well be an opportunity that the club simply couldn't afford to pass up. But the truth remains that Firpo will now have to fit into a very complex system under Bielsa in order to hit the ground running at Elland Road.
Learning on the job in the Premier League isn’t an option and it will be a baptism of fire for Firpo if things begin to go wrong, which is quite conceivable when you think that the first Premier League assignment for the Whites is a trip to Old Trafford on the 14th of August.
When all is said and done, Marcelo Bielsa’s system is a high risk vs high reward, and letting one of the established members of his team go undoubtedly raises the stakes.