Inside Leeds Crisis of Injuries – and Why It May Be Time to Stop “Morderball”

At the last count, when he heard the last flute at London Stadium, on the injured list at Leeds United were all their strikers, their most important midfielder and their captain. To borrow a phrase: losing one key player due to injury can be considered an accident; losing everything looks like negligence.

It was the story of a campaign in West Yorkshire, where he dominated Marcelo Bielsa for the second season back in the Premier League, unable to regularly put his best team on the field.

Bielsa has never spent as long at the club as at Leeds, as his fourth season on Elland Road is commensurate with the months in Lille or the days in Lazio. Even at Newell’s Old Boys or Athletic Bilbao, the Argentine coach made a big impact in a short time before using his pioneering methods elsewhere.

It is suspected that these demands are now catching up with Leeds players after three and a half years of Bielsa’s extreme, energetic football. On game day, they were compared to a basketball team with an exciting attack based on constant running.

At Thorp Arch, which, on Bielsa’s instructions, had the facilities improved, they are train with intensity like no other top team. “Longer sessions. More intense meetings, ”said a source familiar with the schedule of Leeds and the competition clubs. Another difference is multiple full-step scenarios during training.

What took them to the Premier League and made them entertainers last season could also be part of their problem.

As Bielsa explains, there is simply no other way to work as a coach. There can be no compromise, no matter how bad the list of injuries is. There will still be “murderball,” his famous session where the ball is constantly in play, no fouls, no offsides, no tactics. This is simply a test of the player’s physical abilities.

“Training, of course, reproduces competition situations – if not, it’s very difficult to prepare a team,” Bielsa said. “We are still the team that runs the most in the Premier League, counting on half as many players – that has some value and which seems logical, because you say there are so few of them, why don’t you moderate training sessions. ”

The good news for Bielso is that Patrick Bamford is close to returning, but his absence has been severely felt. His form last year brought him a call-up to England in September, but he has hardly played since and then injured himself when he scored and celebrated on his return.