Speaking on the Gary Neville Podcast, the former Manchester United right-back has praised Leeds United for their non-stop running, claiming that he’s never seen a group of players as committed.
Neville certainly isn’t too wide of the mark when he says Leeds are amongst the most committed teams he’s ever seen, after all, Marcelo Bielsa’s gung-ho style has them running all over the pitch for the full 90 minutes.
Leeds may have lost 6-2 on Sunday, but the pundit was unwilling to criticise their approach to the game.
“I can’t criticise that, I don’t want them to change, I don’t expect any change, Bielsa’s a great coach,” Neville said.
“To get a team to commit like that, in the last few minutes to lose 6-2, and still sprinting forward like that and giving it their all, I know there’ll be some sort of cynics out and some managers saying ‘we’d get killed if we played like this’.”
“I’ve never seen a team as committed on a football pitch as that that’ve come up from the Championship, I’ve seen committed teams, but I’ve never seen a group of players who through 90 minutes of every match that I watch them, they run themselves into the ground, they give absolutely everything, they take the ball, they make angles, they create angles, they do all the difficult things.”
This is unbelievably high praise from Neville.
This isn’t a man who hasn’t watched a lot of football in his time, and this is a pundit who has been very open about his dislike of Leeds United in the past.
However, even a biased former Manchester United legend had to admit that this Leeds team are something special, and that’s a real testament to how good they actually are.
Of course, they lost 6-2, but the way they played throughout the match was nothing short of jaw-dropping.
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