Big difference as Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa and Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta meet again

The likes of Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola and Roy Hodgson - the latter ahead of an intriguing clash of the division’s two elder statesmen just before the international break - have all been fulsome in their praise of the Argentinian.

Two weeks on from tackling Hodgson’s Crystal Palace, Bielsa will now face the youngest manager in the league in Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta in tomorrow’s Premier League showdown between the Whites and Gunners.

Despite being close to half his age, Arteta says he too has always been a follower of 65-year-old Bielsa’s progress.

Arteta was just eight years old when Bielsa began his managerial career with Newell’s Old Boys in Argentina in 1990.

Still only 38 years old, Arteta is not yet into his first full year in outright management at the Arsenal helm with the former Manchester City assistant appointed as Unai Emery’s successor in December 2019.

Yet in barely 12 months, Bielsa says Arteta has already made his mark on an Arsenal side for whom United’s head coach has the utmost respect ahead of the Elland Road encounter.

The feeling with Arteta is mutual with the Gunners’ coach already singing the praises of Bielsa via other media outlets even before yesterday’s pre-match press conference.

Arteta then revealed just what he was expecting from tomorrow’s meeting - a Leeds side primed to attack his Gunners at 100 miles per hour.

“Full gas” as he put it.

Arteta, after all, is speaking from experience, with the two managers having already faced off before - even though tomorrow will offer a first league meeting between Bielsa and Arteta and a first top-flight clash between Leeds and Arsenal in 16 years.

The days of Thierry Henry pummelling four past a soon-to-be-relegated Leeds side in May 2004 looked long gone as Bielsa’s then Championship Whites dominated the first half of January’s third round FA Cup clash against Arsenal at the Emirates only to fall to a 1-0 defeat.

It has left Arteta wary - yet Bielsa is in no doubt as to the calibre of team and manager his side will face on Sunday afternoon.

“Arsenal are one of the best teams in the league,” said Bielsa.

“They have players of hierarchy in all of their lines. They have a manager who proposes a style which distinguishes the team.

“He’s a coach who wants his team to play as he projects. From a tactical point of view, if you watch Arsenal closely they show things that I have never seen in any other team.”

Some praise from a coach whom Manchester City boss Guardiola has described as the best manager in the world.

And despite being the youngest manager in the division, Arteta is also another fan and ally, perhaps not surprisingly as Guardiola’s former assistant.

The Gunners boss was only just beginning his youth playing career with Spanish amateur side Antiguoko as Bielsa set out in management with Newell’s in 1990.

Arteta then joined Barcelona aged 15 but failed to make the breakthrough and after being loaned to Paris St-Germain joined Rangers in 2002.

By then, Bielsa was in charge of Argentina having also managed Newell’s, Atlas, América, Vélez Sarsfield and Espanyol.

Arteta then signed for Real Sociedad two years later and spent half of the 2004-05 season with the La Liga side before moving to Everton in 2005.

Six years with the Toffees ended when the midfielder signed for Arsenal in 2011 with the Spaniard only leaving to become Guardiola’s assistant boss at Manchester City in July 2016 as his coaching career first began.

Bielsa, meanwhile, was in his tenth job in management with Lazio having followed six years in charge of Argentina with four years at the helm of Chile before managing Athletic Bilbao and Marseille.

Bielsa quit Lazio after just two days but Arteta enjoyed nearly three and a half years under Guardiola at City before being appointed Arsenal boss in December 2019.

One month later, in what was just his fourth game in charge in January’s FA Cup tie, Arteta stood in the opposite dugout to former Lille boss Bielsa - a manager whose progress has always been on Arteta’s radar.

“I know Marcelo really well because I have followed him over the years,” said Arteta.

“I had the possibility to work with players who have been involved with him for years and he is a manager I have always admired because what he transmits to his players and the way he manages to get his teams playing is very special.

"They’re going to go 100mph for every ball, the way they press you, the way they challenge you, the way they go about the game for 96 minutes.

"They will make it a really difficult and intense game.”

Rather like January’s cup tie, though however impressive Leeds were in the FA Cup third round at the Emirates, Bielsa knows tomorrow’s clash is something very different.

Leeds against Arsenal - but this time in the Premier League - 15th against 11th - with Bielsa still reluctant to draw any sort of conclusions eight games into the season.

“It’s too few games to say how we have adapted to the Premier League,” said United’s head coach.

Asked if he had looked back at January’s FA Cup tie in the build-up to tomorrow - and what he had taken from that in learnings - Bielsa said: “In that game we played well in the first half and not in the second half.

“The improvement of Arsenal in the second half neutralised all of the good things we did in the first-half.

“But the game that is being played on Sunday is not comparable to the one we played in January.”

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Thank you Laura Collins