Jack Harrison has admitted that saying goodbye to Marcelo Bielsa was tougher than the Leeds players imagined, as he told Sky Sports.
The Leeds winger added that everyone at the club is ‘really grateful’ for what Bielsa did during his time in Yorkshire.
Given that highly-demanding coach ended the club’s near two-decade wait to return to the Premier League, it was going to be a real hurtful call by whoever made it to sack him as manager.
Those at the top had their reasons because Leeds have been on a serious slippery slope of late.
But that doesn’t hide what Bielsa meant to the players, the staff and the supporters, as Harrison expressed.
“Everyone at the club is really grateful for what Marcelo has done,” said Harrison. “He brought the club back to where it belongs.
“The development he has had on certain players, it’s incredible too. We are grateful for everything that he has done.
“It was tough, more so than what we imagined. We were able to say goodbye, which was the most important thing and show our gratitude towards everything he has done.”
A player like Harrison is a prime example of the job Bielsa did at Leeds because the improvements he made to his game have been incredible.
When the £11 million player (BBC Sport) first joined the club, it was two loan deals from Manchester City, before it was made permanent when they got promoted.
But, during his early stages of his career at Elland Road, there was a lack of quality, and most importantly, consistency to Harrison’s final third game.
Fast forward to now and the former MLS star is a regular starter and worthy of calling himself a Premier League player.
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