Newcastle United v Leeds United – Recharged Whites set to prove doubters wrong

Bedraggled and besieged after five consecutive and dishwater dull defeats, Newcastle United look like a team in need of a break having not won since November but there has been no letting up on an under-fire team and manager.

By comparison, Leeds’s downturn was only three matches long but they looked a little jaded in their 1-0 defeat to Brighton and Hove Albion, following on the back of a beating on their first visit to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, then an FA Cup defeat to League Two Crawley Town.

Mentally probably as much as physically, it looked like the postponement of the Premier League game against Southampton and the sitting out of the FA Cup fourth round had come at a good time for the Whites, who have Illan Meslier back from illness and report no fresh injuries.

We will find out if that really is the case from 6pm at St James’s Park tonight.

Leeds’s lacklustre performances against Crawley and Brighton – as Bielsa correctly pointed out, the defeat at Tottenham could simply be put down to running into a high-quality, confident side blessed with great attacking talents – fed into two narratives about the enigmatic coach who fascinates so many, the oft-talked-about Bielsa burnout and the pattern of unhappy new years which have been a less disputable feature of his two-and-a-half-year Leeds tenure. He gives little credence to either.

The theory that Bielsa teams run out of puff before the finish line is popular but although last season was not normal, with a three-month enforced break due to Covid-19 – the evidence of how Leeds went into it, on the back of five consecutive victories without so much as a goal conceded, would seem to disprove it. Still, it refuses to go away.

Bielsa argues the physical performance of his energetic team is laid out in black and white but even statistics can be used to paint different pictures. This week a national newspaper’s website pointed to less pressing, fewer tackles and blocks, more opposition passes per challenge than in the thrilling early weeks of 2020-21.

Bielsa’s answer is pretty clear.

“The physical performance is judged by looking at four or five different aspects and there are reports that allow you to evaluate it,” he argues.

“Before every game Leeds’s physical values are always superior to the opponents and after every game it remains better than all the opponents without exception.

“A lot of the teams who face Leeds produce their best physical game of the season up to that point and we are able to be better than them.

“We all have the right to be listened to but there is information that is readily available to everyone that allow us to verify if the opinions being made are the correct ones, whether throughout the season whether it’s true my teams run less or become tired. This information is incorrect and anyone who has an opinion over this aspect can see that they’re wrong.

“It’s just a fact of the person writing ignoring the facts that are there for everyone to see.”

When it comes to Leeds in January, the facts are crystal clear – three defeats in five matches in 2019, a draw then three losses on the spin to open 2020 and this unfolding run.

On this, though, themes are more important and the Argentinian, whose fanaticism towards analysis is legendary, cannot find one, which puts his mind at rest.

At first he answers a question about what is behind it with a blunt, “Nothing in particular,” but just as it looks as though his press conference is over, he expands.

“You’re telling me that in the last few season in a particular month the performance levels have dropped in a particular month so when you ask me this question I think if there’s anything reiterated in this period that indicates why we’ve lowered our performance,” says the never less than studious Bielsa.

“So I look back and see if anything has happened repeatedly over these three periods and I can’t see anything for me to be able to give you a reason.

“It’s not important just to find similar situations but to indicate why they happen. Because there’s nothing that’s reiterated that’s happened, I can’t give you an answer.

“For this case I think each three months should be analysed separately, there’s nothing that links them from my point of view.”

Some things cannot be explained by numbers or any sort of logic. This season’s Premier League is one, and Leeds United are certainly another.

Hopefully a rested Leeds can apply a little sanity against the demoralised Magpies.

Last six games: Newcastle United LLLLLD; Leeds United LLLWWL

Referee: A Taylor (Greater Manchester)

Last time: Newcastle United 1 Leeds United 1, April 14, 2017, Championship.

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