Leeds United v West Brom: Marcelo Bielsa taking sole responsibility with no excuses and 'everything I need'

United blew their opportunity to move back to the top of the division by falling to a 1-0 defeat in Tuesday night's game in hand at Queens Park Rangers, leaving the Whites outside of the Championship's automatic promotion places and third ahead of Friday night's showdown with fourth-placed West Brom at Elland Road.

Victory would still take Leeds top and one point ahead of Norwich City who visit Milwall on Saturday with the Whites now also presented with an opportunity to move three points ahead of Sheffield United who visit Sheffield Wednesday on Monday for the Steel City derby.

On the flip side, defeat against the Baggies would leave Darren Moore's side just one point behind Leeds who would risk losing further ground on the top two.

Bielsa knows the fixture is of huge importance but is already stressing that any failings will be solely his responsibility with the head coach giving a passionate defence of his staff, players and club at his Thursday afternoon press conference.

Asked if he was concerned about mental tiredness with 12 games to go, Bielsa said: "We evaluate the physical performance of the players, the loads in the training sessions and the adaptations of the mental needs that a competition like the Championship asks for.

"We have positive tools, and we have difficulties too. I don't talk about the difficulties this publicly.

"But regarding the positive tools that we have at our disposal, I try to describe them in the most fair way possible.

"I never make any public criticism and I never over-estimate the players with the goal of making them happy.

"I deeply believe that all the positive things that the players do is thanks to them and I also deeply believe that the wrong things that happen or the difficulties that we are facing are my responsibility.

"In a nutshell I say have tools to avoid the difficulties and if I don't reach this goal it means that it's my responsibility.

"If there is a situation that happens that I didn't want it's not because we haven't detected it, it's because we haven't found the right response and this is always the responsibility of the staff and I don't see any physical fatigue or mental one and we train as every team does.

"We evaluate each training session, we never do more than what the analysis of modern football advises and we have enough tools to evaluate the repercussions on the bodies and the minds of the players that the training sessions have.

"We control the food and the diet and the sleeps and we ask for the help of God and if there is something wrong that is happening and there is a difficulty then it is linked to my responsibility.

"I receive everything I need from the players and from the club and all of the staff around the first team.

"I give such a long response because according to the next result, we have we will have some questions like that so that's why I am giving this detailed response and I hope we can use this response for all the possible next questions similar to this one.

"We don't have any excuses, the players are not responsible for the difficulties and I am responsible for everything because I have the support of the players and the support of the club."