Marcelo Bielsa reflects on Leeds United pain and motivation to heal wounds with promotion to the Premier League

HEAD COACH Marcelo Bielsa admits Leeds United are being fuelled by last season's heartache to erase the pain in his second term in charge.
SPURRED ON: Head coach Marcelo Bielsa back with Leeds United's fans for a second season before the 1-1 draw at home to Nottingham Forest. Photo by George Wood/Getty Images.SPURRED ON: Head coach Marcelo Bielsa back with Leeds United's fans for a second season before the 1-1 draw at home to Nottingham Forest. Photo by George Wood/Getty Images.
SPURRED ON: Head coach Marcelo Bielsa back with Leeds United's fans for a second season before the 1-1 draw at home to Nottingham Forest. Photo by George Wood/Getty Images.

Bielsa's men remain unbeaten three games into the new Championship campaign and victory at home to Wednesday night's visitors Brentford would see the Whites match last season's flying start of ten points from their first four fixtures.

The Whites spent the vast majority of last season in the division's two automatic promotion places only to agonisingly fall away in the final month to finish third with United's season then ended by defeat to Derby County in the play-offs semi-finals.

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Three months on, Leeds already sit top of the table on goal difference following two victories and a draw with Bielsa saying his men are taking great heart from being well-placed to now right last season's wrongs.

"Of course if you are thinking about last year's situation, you can feel this pain," said Bielsa.

"But we have the possibility to change this situation.

"We have the hope and the motivation going from the disappointing feeling in this case."

Wednesday night's clash against Brentford will mark a return to Elland Road for Swedish international centre-back Pontus Jansson who was sold to the Bees in the summer after a breakdown in relationship between club and player.

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Brentford approach the contest with four points from a possible opening nine with the Bees fourth favourites to win the division.

Leeds, though, are clear market leaders ahead of Fulham and West Brom with the Whites already top of the pile following wins at Bristol City and Wigan Athletic and a 1-1 draw at home to Nottingham Forest.

United also started last season by picking up ten points from an opening possible 12 - a feat that would be matched with victory against Brentford.

"In all the circumstances, to get the winning is always important," said Bielsa, reflecting on how important another strong start was.

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"Any circumstance where you can not take the win is going to be complicated.

"Of course, we don’t want to be satisfied when you are watching just one dynamic with a good result.

"It’s very fast to do some analysis with only three games.

"Any comment that we make right now is without the right time to draw conclusions.

"We have played three different games and giving a point of view without having enough numbers is not the right thing to do right now."