Marcelo Bielsa refusing to let doubters ruin Leeds’ season

Marcelo Bielsa TEAMtalk

Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa has urged his side to recover their confidence as doubts continue to grow that they will blow their automatic promotion hopes.

Bielsa’s men can return to the top of the table with a victory at Nottingham Forest on Saturday night, but a worrying run of form has seen the likes of Forest, Fulham, Brentford and Bristol City close the gap to the automatic promotions spots.

However, Bielsa was in a bullish mood ahead of the game, telling reporters: “There are no expectations, there are doubts. The supporting is not believing any more in our team. But we believe in our team. For this reason, now people are asking for anything, when one player is in the sea and he’s dying. Supporting is not believing in us anymore, but we believe more than ever in ourselves.

“We wish to always play at Elland Road because our supporters never damage our team. So for us, playing away is not a good thing for us. If you think playing is better away, then you think playing at home is uncomfortable and it’s not like that. If the supporters lost his faith in the team we have to recover the confidence that we lost.

“We have to recover the confidence that the supporter does not have now. We need the confidence of the supporter and if we don’t deserve it, we are trying to recover it. What we are not going to do is give up and not trust in ourselves. Because we deserve to keep the trust in our side.

“It doesn’t matter most of the matches that we’ve lost has meant people don’t trust more in our team, we are forced to analyse what we make of things. And take conclusions and see what we expect. No doubts about the job we are doing and we know the problems and which are the solutions that can resolve those problems.

“So, I prefer to take the responsibility fo the mistakes which puts the responsibility of those things to another.”

Bielsa, meanwhile, refused to say whether or not new signing Jean-Kevin Augustin would make his debut for the club against Forest. The football betting tips suggest from Sporty Trader suggest backing a draw at odds of 3.58 with 22 Bet, and we have to agree.

The 22-year-old, who previously snubbed a move to Man Utd, has yet to make a senior appearance for the club and played 45 minutes for Leeds’ Under-23s before taking a heavy knock and failing to appear for the second half in midweek. Read more…