Fuming pundits can't solve mystery of Marcelo Bielsa but Leeds United fans feel what Chile and Athletic Bilbao fans felt - Daniel Chapman

Even in good moods Sean Dyche makes the rumbling moan of a gruesome spectre, but only Sunday’s referee can confirm if he moves with the clanking sound of chains.

“What time can I come in, ref?” he barked, again and again, like the Ghost of Christmas Past trying to book an appointment with a throat specialist.

Leeds had just followed up a resounding away defeat to an anything-you-like scoreline by taking on a Lancashire club at Elland Road, winning a dour game through a penalty from an in-form striker.

If the malevolent rattle of demon Dyche doesn’t remind you of a Christmas past from 2012/13, you must not be one of the thousands who suffered that winter. Children in the Family Stand for a festive treat that New Year’s Day are now entering adulthood, and entering therapy to excavate the memory.

The resounding defeat was at Hull, right after a 4-2 loss at Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day. The Tigers flattered us with a 2-0 scoreline, Eddie Gray observing in this paper that, “it could have been anything between five and 10 nil.”

The supposedly restorative New Year’s win over Bolton was one of the most deflating days of my football-watching life. Three points were earned, moving Leeds up to eighth in the Championship. Manager Neil Warnock was typically ... typical.

“The first thing you need to be successful is 11 lads working their socks off,” he said. Losing their socks that day were Alan Tate, David Norris and El Hadji Diouf. Quite how playing Paul Green on the right-wing would bring success wasn’t clear, but his lack of pace wasn’t a problem if nobody else was running anyway. Luciano Becchio’s winning penalty was his 18th goal of a season soon doomed by Steve Morison.

“We do need a bit more quality here and there,” said Warnock. “But, as a manager, I can’t ask any more than they’ve given me. I’m right proud of them.”

I don’t know the idiomatic Spanish for not faulting the effort of a great bunch of lads, but we can’t pretend there aren’t aspects of football’s language that are universal. What stat does Marcelo Bielsa keep using to explain our games this season? Physical outputs. That is, running. Effort. What does he consistently stress as key among his players? Their human qualities, their personalities.

Put Neil and Marcelo in a room with a stack of football videos and a bottle of wine, and they’d emerge arm in arm, unable to fault Stuart Dallas’ effort. And Gjanni? For us, Gjanni’s a great lad to have around the place.

This might help explain the permanent state of miffedness engulfing English soccer’s pop pundits. They see mythology around a coach whose core ideas include exceptional fitness, maximum effort and getting the ball forward.

He’s Graham Taylor on a bucket, bringing Pablo Hernandez on with instructions to sit deep, pass long and hit Les. Sorry, Pat, hit Pat. Same thing: gerrit forward and run until the final whistle. After the conceptual implosion of Old Trafford, Leeds fought their way past Burnley in a superficially un-Bielsa way.

Next come Sam Allardyce’s West Brom, as dense as the chunk of chuddy he was proudly chewing while doing his 4-6-0 number on Jurgen Klopp.

There will be a yearning for restitution around that game, for Allardyce to set Bielsa straight as a smoke-selling myth, no different to any other coach, implausibly lauded for using a translator to praise ‘great effort from the lads’.

Let them yearn, and let them fume. Pundits can’t solve the mystery of Bielsa’s genius, and it has become clear this past week that the intangibles only Leeds fans feel - and Chile fans, and Bilbao, and so on - are the source of the anger. If so much is the same, how can anything about this guy be different?

The ball is always round, and the pitch, no matter how many times Dyche paces its measurements, is always the same size. Here are the players, there are the goals.

But I watched Warnock’s Leeds win games and went home wishing the club would close down and save me from suffering another.

And I watched Bielsa’s Leeds embarrassed at Old Trafford, and at full-time I couldn’t wait for the next match to begin.

How can we explain that, even though our Christmas was ruined 6-2, Leeds fans are among the few, fortunate people looking back at 2020 and thinking, all in all, this year had its good points?

We’ve got a great bunch of lads at Leeds, and you can’t fault their effort. And it’s a joy to be spending Christmas feeling that sincerely.