Paul Merson says Marcelo Bielsa needs an urgent tactical rethink: "He needs to change things. I worry for them. Every neutral wants to watch Leeds United play football and that's not right, not at the moment, it's not time for all of us to want to watch Leeds United play football"
Sunday 27 February 2022 12:04, UK
Paul Merson says Marcelo Bielsa must change his approach urgently if he wants to stop Leeds' Premier League status "fizzling away".
Leeds have conceded 20 goals in their last five matches and slumped to a 4-0 defeat at home to Tottenham after being thrashed 6-0 in midweek away at Liverpool.
Speaking before the heavy defeat to Spurs, Merson urged Bielsa to change the way he plays to prevent Leeds from getting sucked further into the battle to avoid Premier League relegation.
"At the moment this rot needs to stop. I think the worrying thing for me was getting clapped off last Sunday. They had just been beaten by their arch-enemies, their arch-rivals Manchester United in the biggest game of their year - and they let in four goals - and they are getting clapped off.
"He's pulling the wool over people's eyes. he needs to change things. His squad is depleted, I know he's got big players out, but he has to change it. You can't keep going to Liverpools and Man Uniteds and opening games up and get beaten sixes and fours. You have to stop it. At the moment, I worry for them, I really worry for them.
"I think the fans need to get a bit stronger. Don't start clapping your team off. If I got beat by Tottenham four at Highbury when I was playing there is no way I would be getting clapped off. Just go home. You don't have to boo, I'm not saying boo and throw shoes at them.
"They've worked so hard to get to where they are in this league, and at the moment it is fizzling away. I love watching Leeds, I have no affinity to Leeds and I love watching them, but I know there is going to be goal after goal, no matter what end it's going to be - and that's worrying.
"Every neutral wants to watch Leeds United play football and that's not right. That's not right, not at the moment, it's not time for all of us to want to watch Leeds United play football."
Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son set a new Premier League record of 37 goal combinations, overtaking Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard, as Spurs beat Leeds 4-0 at Elland Road on Saturday lunchtime.
Kane looked inspired in the second half and his assist for Son's goal late in the second half - Tottenham's fourth of the afternoon - saw the duo overtake the former Chelsea pair as the most fruitful Premier League partnership to date.
Leeds manager Bielsa faces increasing scrutiny after two heavy results, and pointed to the inefficient link between his defence and offence as a factor in recent results.
He told his post-match press conference: "It's not just this game, but a succession of results and against these types of results, there's no way of not feeling badly.
"In this moment, it's very difficult for us to impose our way of playing. I need no help to understand that the same way a style of play developed and was effective… so when the opposite happens, I have to admit that what I'm proposing isn't working.
"Our way of playing has two great needs - there's a press in the opponents' half that prevents the ball getting to their forwards cleanly so when the opponents' forwards receive the ball, that they find themselves uncomfortable because the pass that found them was difficult. In the last three games, that hasn't happened.
"We didn't manage to press well in their build-up, we made enormous efforts but it didn't work. So the passes that came from back to front, they could always pick them. In that case, it's not easy for the line to recover the ball to become efficient.
"This explanation makes the players exempt because when you propose something that the players aren't able to take forward, they lose culpability.
"I can't deny we're not getting what we used to get. But when the players give their all physically with so much effort, clearly I have to think that what I'm proposing, it's not that they don't want to do it, they're just not managing to do it.
"The amount of goals we've conceded, of course it has a decisive influence of the results. No team can think of progressing within the competition if you have a defensive weakness that is so manifested as ours.
"It's not only a problem with how we defend, but the total function of the team… we're a team where one thing influences the other and that link has stopped being efficient.
"The problems are not due to the absence of the players, with the totality of all the players, things would have been less difficult. But it's clear we shouldn't be on this run of results due to the absence of the players."
