Speaking on the Super Six Podcast, Luke Ayling has shared what Kyle Bartley told him about Marcelo Bielsa when he first arrived at Leeds United.
Bartley was of course once on loan at Leeds, so he and Ayling have something of a good relationship, and Ayling asked Bartley what he knew about Bielsa when he arrived.
Bartley, of course, played with Andre Ayew who was a part of Bielsa’s Marseille team, so the centre-back had a bit of information to share with Ayling about the Argentine.
“At the start when I first heard about it, I didn’t really know much about him,” Ayling said.
“So, I did a bit of research and spoke to Kyle Bartley who was at Swansea and he played with somebody who was with him at Marseille. Kyle said ‘with this guy, start doing your running now he runs you into the ground, so you need to make sure you’re ready for pre-season’.”
“I said ‘nah, nah I’ll be fine’, but wow, that first pre-season it was a struggle.”
Bartley was spot on about Bielsa.
The Argentine has turned Leeds into one of the fittest and most energetic teams in the world, and that’s only achievable by putting the players through their paces.
We can’t begin to imagine how hard it is to train under Bielsa, and we certainly don’t envy those Leeds players who had to endure that first pre-season under the Argentine.
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