Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa expresses regret over Frank Lampard's Chelsea sacking

Marcelo Bielsa has expressed his regret over Frank Lampard's dismissal as Chelsea head coach.

Lampard was sacked after just 18 months in charge at Stamford Bridge earlier this week and was immediately replaced by former Paris Saint-Germain boss Thomas Tuchel.

The former Blues midfielder was appointed by owner Roman Abramovich in July 2019, having gained just one year of managerial experience with Derby County in the Championship since his playing retirement.

During his spell in charge of the Rams, Lampard became somewhat of a foe to Leeds and Bielsa amid the 'Spygate' scandal and resulting play-off meeting, where County ended the Whites promotion hopes at the end of the Argentine's first season in charge at Elland Road.

Leeds, though, bounced back to secure a place in the Premier League at the second time of asking under Bielsa's stewardship in LS11, facing Lampard last month for the first time in the top flight.

Chelsea ran out 3-1 winners in West London in early December but a poor run of form since the victory cost Lampard his job despite progression into the Champions League knockout stages.

The Blues spent heavily last summer enjoying a huge spending spree - totalling over the £200m mark - in the wake of the club's FIFA-imposed transfer embargo being lifted.

Bielsa, who was speaking at his pre-match press conference ahead of this weekend's Premier League clash with Leicester City, admitted he was sorry to see his former top flight colleague lose his job.

"First of all I can't judge the decision of Chelsea. Secondly, I regret that he wasn't able to finish this project," Bielsa told reporters.

"The feeling I get is that the group Lampard built is one of the best in English football. When you say a very good group in English football, you also mean the whole world.

"Evidently that group needed development and time. So without offering any judgement over the choices of an institution at Chelsea, I do regret that a colleague who has designed a very interesting project was not able to finish it."

Bielsa was also quizzed over the amount of time managers are given in the modern game and the Premier League in particular, with Lampard sacked less than two years into his reign.

The Argentine provided a lengthy answer on the growing trend of wishing for immediate success in English football.

"With respect to the time that coaches are given by institutions... English football, which has been a leader in the world with allowing managers time to develop their projects, has clearly stopped doing so," Bielsa said.

"Which is to say that English football over time has less English spirit and is owned less by the English. This has positive things and also some negatives.

"Very well qualified coaches arrived, very good players arrive, the quality of the spectacle is improved, the scenario stops being national and starts being international. But there are also things that the football here possessed that no longer does possess, that also made it very attractive.

"For example the episode where a team can be created over a long period of time. The improvement of the project was valued, through hard work and support.

"To lose that is to lose a lot of things. Not so much for the most powerful teams, for whom everything is the same. The powerful teams are in conditions to solve any problems they come across.

"Banks give money to teams who have money, not teams who need it. In an industry where the most powerful are helped, it's very easy to be a big team. But I also think this is good, because the powerful teams are not powerful for no reason because they have more supporters than anyone else and tend to have a rich history.

"The power they have is deserved. But the rest of the teams can get close to these teams. What makes a team strong apart from the economical part and the amount of people who watch them, is the quality of the players."

The Leeds boss also reiterated his belief in owners and managers buying into long-term projects, praising again the Football League for the production line of talent it produces.

"It's very difficult to construct a team quickly and very difficult to buy the best players," Bielsa added.

"There are alternate paths to create these players yourself, to make these players loyal so they would rather stay where they are than go elsewhere and another fundamental aspect is to find players who are not yet stars and develop them.

"That's why I value the leagues below the Premier League and the Championship because this is the space I am talking about.

"In all those teams there are below, there is the possibility to become big. But we know the difficulties are huge because everything that is here right now makes it difficult for the small teams to aspire to be a big team.

"If you go to South America for example to try and discover a player, it's impossible. They already belong to the best teams in the world, who have purchased them by one way or another.

"Or they belong to certain people, who have acquired them in a certain way.

"There are a lot of institutions that are not clubs, so you have to go through a different path.

"That's why I always hope that the public is averse to all of this because the public only value the badge and the result. One day all of this is going to have consequences the public will regret, truly."