Leeds United are sitting in the automatic places heading into their game with Preston North End on Tuesday.
Preston North End manager Alex Neil has praised Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa and his ability to get the very best out of a ‘decent player’.
The promotion-chasing manager, whose team will welcome Leeds to Deepdale tonight, claimed that Leeds have had a ‘lot of players’ who have been ‘decent’ at the Championship level for a ‘long time’ but they no longer are because of Bielsa.
Last season, when Bielsa took charge of Leeds, he ended up finishing third that season with a group of players that had previously stumbled to a mid-table finish.
Ahead of Preston’s clash against Leeds, Neil lauded Bielsa’s eye for talent and how he can transform a player by just having a serious understanding of what he is or isn’t like.
“It is not necessarily the depth of research he does on opponents, it is more the understanding his players have of their roles,” Neil told the Lancashire Post.
“They have a lot of players who have played at this level for a long time and they have been decent players. But I think a lot of them now are better than decent players.”
Bielsa likes to work with a small squad and there have been many players who have transformed their games to levels they perhaps never thought they would because of their popular manager.
There are some, like Kalvin Phillips, who had an abundance of talent, but it is Bielsa who is getting the best out of him and has now arguably transformed him into a player worthy of performing in the Premier League.
Leeds have a chance to potentially go top of the Championship table on Tuesday night when they take on Neil’s side, who also have a chance to leapfrog the Yorkshire club if they take all three points off them.
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