Luke Ayling has revealed that Marcelo Bielsa starves his Leeds players of one thing during the week.
The full-back told Mundial’s Giant podcast: ‘He starves us of the ball in the week, so we don’t do any keep balls like every other team, keep balls, five-a-side, it’s fun but our fun comes on a Saturday, playing football, keeping the ball and being on the front foot and attacking.’
This is just another unique example of the Argentine’s management style, which is proving to work wonders.
Most clubs would presumably want their players to spend as much time on the ball as possible during the week’s training.
However, in suffocating his players of the ball from Monday to Friday, Bielsa is ensuring that they’re raring to go at the weekend, hungry to taste possession as much as they can.
That has perhaps been a contributing factor as to why Leeds impressively average the fourth-highest amount of possession in the Premier League this season, according to WhoScored.
Only Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea can say that they have more of the ball per game than the Yorkshire-based outfit’s average of 56.4%.
It could be argued that Ayling and his teammates are so keen to actually have the ball, unlike they do on weekdays, that their desire to keep ahold of it is increased on matchday.
If that is the case, then Bielsa’s methods are working perfectly.
Leeds aren’t just keeping the ball for the sake of it either.
Bielsa’s men also average 13.1 shots per game, the joint-fifth most in the Premier League.
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