Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Marcelo Bielsa has been chatting about the recent reports about a rift between himself and Kalvin Phillips.
Phillips sparked a bit of controversy after his comments against Tottenham where he seemed to question the manager’s decision to play him as a centre-back.
Inevitably, this led to some pundits questioning the midfielder’s relationship with the manager who earns £154,000-a-week, but Bielsa has dismissed any rumour about potential issues.
What’s Bielsa said?
Bielsa hit out at the media, stating that these rumours are false and that he doesn’t understand why there’s this need for sensationalism in the press.
“It’s what’s common in the world of football. It’s difficult to express yourself over things that didn’t happen, that there’s nothing behind and that they are expressed as a reality,” Bielsa said.
“This was the spread of something that didn’t happen at all. What I’m saying is, it’s the way the press are, the objective is very clear: it’s to bring attention with any type of resource. The press, not only do they inform, but they have their legitimate need that what they tell wakes up interest and in that process, on occasion, it happens that they invent realities to bring attention.
“I think in England from my point of view, it’s less than elsewhere, normally that’s because the material they work with is precious because very few leagues have so much to say about it as something as precious as the Premier League.”
So much scrutiny
Unfortunately for Bielsa and anyone involved in Premier League football, anything that is said can be taken out of context and scrutinised.
Phillips’ comments after Spurs look so different in print than they do when you listen to the tone of his voice. The midfielder questioned the gaffer with a smile on his face and his tongue firmly in his cheek, but when you read the words, you can take that in a completely different way.
Bielsa doesn’t understand why everything needs to be sensationalised, but unfortunately, that’s the way of the world these days, everything has to have a positive or a negative spin attached to it.
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