Phil Hay shares what he’s been told about Bielsa stance on late Leeds United transfers
Marcelo Bielsa is pretty much happy with his squad at Leeds United and isn’t too bothered about new January signings, according to The Athletic journalist Phil Hay.
Leeds have not signed a single new player for their senior squad this month despite the extraordinary number of injuries Bielsa’s had to deal with all season.
Red Bull Salzburg midfielder Brenden Aaronson has been strongly linked with a move to Elland Road but Hay has been told that Bielsa is rather content with the options he has.
“[Bielsa] doesn’t want that many players,” said Hay on the latest episode of The Phil Hay Show podcast on 28 January.
“I’ve been told by various people this month that he’s not been that fussed about people coming in.
“And I know people are on the outside saying, ‘you don’t have enough, you need this, you could do with more in midfield,’ but going right back to the start, he’s never really relied on the transfer market in the way that so many other head coaches do.
“It is kind of difficult and I can imagine there are probably times when the recruitment team at the club are thinking, ‘we would do with signing him or signing him or we could do with improving this, that or the other,’ but the final decision will always be Bielsa’s. It kind of has to be.”
Nonsensical
Ever since Bielsa’s first summer in charge of Leeds, we’ve known that he hasn’t been a fan of utilising the transfer market.
Of course, Leeds did spend over £100million on new signings after winning promotion and splashed the cash again last summer on players like Junior Firpo and Daniel James.
However, if you look at the senior squad as a whole, most of those players were there before Bielsa came in and most of them are still mainstays of his matchday team.
Luke Ayling, Pascal Struijk, Liam Cooper, Stuart Dallas, Adam Forshaw, Kalvin Phillips, Mateusz Klich and Tyler Roberts were all here at Elland Road before Bielsa came in.
Bielsa has opted to stick to his guns more often than not and not looked to disrupt the pack by signing someone new.
But we really need it now. Our midfield is shot to pieces, our bench has a 15-year-old on it most weeks, we’re struggling to score and our form really isn’t great.
Victor Orta needs to be a bit more authoritative and maybe realise that Bielsa isn’t going to be at Leeds forever – even next season someone new could be in charge.
Do they really want to inherit a squad in need of major investment?
In other Leeds United news, a club is set to sanction a last-ditch sale of this player who Leeds have made an approach to sign.