Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa has admitted to Leeds Live that he shouldn’t have taken Ian Poveda off against Crawley Town.
Leeds were beaten 3-0 by Crawley last weekend, in what was one of the shocks of the round in the FA Cup.
Poveda’s display in the first-half was one of the Whites’ more promising ones.
However, the winger was withdrawn after an hour had been played, and Bielsa says that he regrets that decision now.
“With respect to Poveda, he was the player who unbalanced the most in the first half and after 15 minutes in the second half to have substituted him, it was not the correct decision because in the first half he managed to unbalance the opponent,” Bielsa said.
“In those 15 minutes I noticed that we weren’t making inroads through the left channel and I wanted to keep Helder on the pitch given that Poveda had already 30 minutes against Tottenham. That’s why I made that change.”
Poveda was one of the few Leeds players who could come out of last weekend with any credit.
The youngster would likely have been disappointed to see his game time cut short, though, as he has struggled for starts this term.
Bielsa has regularly used Poveda from the bench, but he has not been picked in a Premier League starting XI yet.
Leeds are next in action against Brighton tomorrow, but it seems most likely that Poveda will only feature from the bench again.
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