MOT View: Bielsa must unleash potential Leeds gamechanger who can get fans off their seats
It is only the second day of February but Leeds United supporters are yet to see any of the club’s new January recruits in action in the Championship.
While Elia Caprile is bound to have a long wait for his first senior involvement, Ian Poveda and Jean-Kevin Augustin are two players who Marcelo Bielsa needs to get into his team as soon as possible based on the Whites’ current poor form.
Leeds won against Millwall on Tuesday to go top of the Championship table but that spell as league-leaders came to a premature end on Saturday as they lost at home to Wigan and West Brom beat Luton.
One player who really struggled in the 1-0 defeat to the Latics this weekend was winger Helder Costa.
According to stats by WhoScored, Costa had three shots at goal at Elland Road on Saturday but only one of them hit the target.
Costa’s dribble success rate was only 56 per cent and his one key pass was worse than what three other Leeds attackers managed.
Costa is someone who could potentially cost the Whites £15million at the end of the season if it is decided that his loan move from Wolves will become permanent, so we do need to see a lot more from the Portuguese attacker.
Sky Sports pundit and ex-Leeds midfielder David Prutton has recently shared that view too.
“With Costa, we have debated before that for the price tag I personally think he needs to bring more to the table but we know exactly what he is capable of,” Prutton told the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Costa has not scored or assisted a goal in his last five league outings and hasn’t completed more than one key pass in a match since early December.
It is time, it seems, for a change in Leeds’ attack.
Luckily, Poveda seems to be ready to play for the Whites almost straight away given the fact that he has been on the bench in the last two games.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has claimed that Poveda is a “perfect” for Bielsa’s style of play [LeedsLive] and the 19-year-old has also been compared to Etihad stars Bernardo Silva and David Silva [Yorkshire Evening Post].
Leeds star Stuart Dallas has also suggested that Poveda is a player who’ll get fans off their seats thanks to his explosive pace and ability to turn defenders inside out.
“He’s fast and direct. He’s fitted in really well. It’s good because I haven’t seen a player take to a group as well as he’s taken to us. I’m being serious. He’s lively,” said the Northern Ireland international, as quoted by The Athletic journalist Phil Hay.
“We did the murderball session last week and I was up against him. I found out how quick he was.”
Poveda is readymade for Leeds United, it seems, and the fact that Costa is struggling means that it is a great time for the former Man City winger to come into the side.
Let’s see if he can make a difference. Let’s see if he can at least be an improvement on Costa, who has underperformed for large periods of this season.
Bielsa is not a fan of switching up his line-up but he signed Poveda for a reason.
Maybe his reason for signing the London-born winger was to start him if Costa’s form dropped too much.
In other Leeds United news, fans raved about one player who they dubbed as ‘MOTM’ despite the defeat to Wigan.