Leeds United are top of the league under Marcelo Bielsa and dreaming of the Premier League, which cannot be said of Huddersfield Town.
Huddersfield Town owner Phil Hodgkinson believes the Terriers are stronger than Yorkshire rivals Leeds United in many departments, hailing the way Marcelo Bielsa has crafted a side far better than the sum of its parts while speaking to the And He Takes That Chance podcast.
When the Championship season was postponed indefinitely due to the global health pandemic, Leeds were top of the table and just nine games away from a long-awaited return to the Premier League.
Huddersfield, meanwhile, are 17 places further down, a staggering 29 points adrift of their white-clad neighbours.
That in itself is a reflection of the miracles Bielsa has worked since taking charge at Elland Road two years ago, with a legendary tactician completely transforming a group of players who finished in the bottom half during a disappointing 2017/18 season under Thomas Christiansen and Paul Heckingbottom.
The likes of Kalvin Phillips, Luke Ayling and Liam Cooper have gone from average to awesome while Bielsa has also coaxed career-best performances out of Ben White, Jack Harrison and Pablo Hernandez.
And Hodgkinson suggests that Leeds’ rapid rise is a reflection of the impact one manager can make.
“When we got promoted (to the top-flight in 2017) we got promoted because we had a manager (David Wagner) who had a system that was better than the players we had, which is what is happening at Leeds,” he says.
“Bielsa’s way of playing [is better than that squad]. If you cut those two squads together, I would not say, in my personal opinion, that Leeds have got better players than us barring one or two.
“I believe we’ve got better players in most positions.”
Huddersfield fans can only dream about what the likes of Karlan Grant, Emile Smith-Rowe, Chris Willock and Juninho Bacuna could achieve under the managerial mastermind Bielsa.
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