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Marcelo Bielsa: Five points ahead of Chelsea

Quotes from Bielsa’s press conference.

Marcelo Bielsa Web 166.jpg

Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa has held his pre-match press conference ahead of Saturday’s Premier League clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

Here we look at five points made by the Leeds United head coach ahead of the upcoming fixture.

On his assessment after 10 games…

“I’m always a little reluctant to answer this question. If you observe, we had a favourable start to the season where the goals that we conceded didn’t really affect the result as we were scoring plenty. Then, there was a period where we conceded a lot of goals and we weren’t very efficient in attack. The third period where we haven’t conceded goals and have created opportunities to deserve to win. Which three of these periods describe us best? I wouldn’t know what to tell you."

On Ezgjan Alioski and Stuart Dallas against Everton…

“They’ve both played the majority of the game on the left-hand side. In this sector on the left-hand side, there are three heights. The height where James Rodriguez moved, the height where he won’t be moved and the height or level of the pitch where Ben Godfrey moved. There was combinations of movements there to attack and to defend. The more advanced ones are Harrison and Raphinha. Alioski was in front of Dallas and behind the winger, and Dallas who was the furthest one back. The three of them with obligations to defend and to attack and with the possibility to interchange functions. At the end of the game Dallas and Alioski started changing sides but this was a small portion of the game.”

On Frank Lampard and Chelsea…

“During last season he developed a lot of the players that were already in the institution and this season he improved the composition of his team, choosing players for the positions he deemed he needed. It’s not that my evaluation is helpful for anything. This shown by the way that the team is playing well, the individuals of the team are of hierarchy. There are many different types of components in his team. There are young players that have developed, there was signings with experience and signings with a big future. If you read what is written about Chelsea you will hear or see all of these things that I have mentioned.”

On Kalvin Phillips improving…

“What distinguishes Kalvin from the rest is his ability to play the ball. In order to obtain the ball to distribute it, there’s two paths there. One is to recover the ball and after recovering it, managing the ball. The second path is to be able to move into positions where he can receive the ball and be able to distribute it. The more he recovers the ball and the more he moves to become free, the more he will be able to shine.”

On recent clean sheets…

“The defensive performance in the last two games was better against Arsenal than it was against Everton. Against Arsenal we encountered not a lot of danger and against Everton we conceded some chances which could have resulted in goals.”

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