Speaking on the Studs Up podcast, Jonjo Shelvey has shared an interesting anecdote about a conversation he had with Rodrigo when Leeds came to St James’ Park.
The midfielder was talking about modern football’s obsession with stats, especially when it comes to running, and inevitably, discussion about running stats turned to Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United.
Shelvey noted that Rodrigo wouldn’t stop running, before sharing a brief conversation the pair had on the pitch.
“Like we obviously played Leeds at St James’ Park about a month ago now, and that Rodrigo fella was in the middle mate and he was meant to be playing centre-midfield and he was just all over the place,” Shelvey said.
“I said to him ‘geez can you just stand still for one minute, because you’re just running around like a nutcase.’ Some of it was just pointless running as well and he goes ‘I must do, I must do, my manager says I must do.’
“I couldn’t play for Leeds,” Shelvey concluded.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Marcelo Bielsa places a lot of importance on how much his players run, but this is interesting to hear nonetheless.
Rodrigo is certainly one of the hardest workers in the Premier League on the pitch, so it’s no surprise to hear that he’s an absolute nuisance to mark.
The Spaniard sounds like a manager’s dream as well, continuously running because Bielsa had told him to, even making what Shelvey would describe as pointless runs.
Shelvey may think he’s a bit of a ‘nutcase’ for the amount of running he does, but that’s why they call Bielsa ‘el Loco’.
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