Leeds United v Crystal Palace - Marcelo Bielsa press conference every word, Kalvin Phillips, Patrick Bamford, Luke Ayling and Conor Gallagher

Good morning! Marcelo Bielsa is holding his earliest ever Leeds United pre-match press conference today, 8am for the pre-Palace media duties. Let’s get a coffee on and full coverage to follow here. Luke Ayling is set to play for the under-23s at Man City tonight (7pm) whilst Patrick Bamford and Robin Koch were said to be in the final stages of their recoveries too. Updates on that trio - and the need for a return to form after the Brighton display - will be top of the agenda, oh, and facing Palace’s Chelsea loanee Conor Gallagher, who Leeds tried to sign in the summer. A fine player.

Members of the media are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and gathered via Zoom, Marcelo will be with us shortly.

Marcelo takes his seat

“The wins are always a necessity and of course in this case also, we are considering every game successively and we hope it is a point of support to start a recovery.”

“With respect to the injuries, Bamford and Ayling are going to play for the under-23s today and the recovery of Koch is on the programme as scheduled. And with respect to Kalvin, he is available for the game tomorrow and as I said in my declarations after the game against Brighton, Pascal and Shackleton coming on were all to do with improving how the team was playing. I don’t link it to his individual performance, whether it was high or low, I am referring to the players that came off - Kalvin and Junior - but it was to look for a more efficient collective organisation, with different characteristics for the execution of the same function.”

“He has changed the style of the team without too many signings. It is a team that is solvent, with a careful management of the ball and with clear positive results.”

“No I don’t think he is below his level. Of course, every game has its characteristics, its themes, and there are times when the characteristic of the game and in the mind of the coach, in this case mine, is to imagine a different option for the same function but I don’t see Kalvin with any substantial difference.”

“Junior is a player that is growing as he puts minutes together. His performances have been improving until he had an interruption due to injury and now he is progressively recovering his best form as it happened like so at the beginning of the season. The last game was a difficult game for us down the right sector of the opponent, he suffered a caution early on and that conditions the player with the freedom that he has to go and win the ball and the co-ordination down the left did not give him the back up that he would usually have.”

“I think that the natural feeling of the fan is to want to get what is in play. So when a team doesn’t get what the fans thinks that their team is capable of they manifest their unsatisfaction but I can’t talk about the reality of Brighton because I don’t know it and it doesn’t correspond for me to analyse it. I am just making a projection to the fan in general and that doesn’t coincide with the attitude that the Leeds fans have towards us because in the adversity is when they show most their support and that’s when they have the most comprehension.”

“Obviously the function of a coach is for their team to play as he desires and it’s admirable how deeply he has been able to install his ideas at Crystal Palace.”

“Fundamentally, I am more worried about how we adapt to any type of play that an opponent offers. When a team puts the ball at risk it makes you have to solve certain things. And when the opponent gives you the ball then it is other situations that you have to overcome. That happens constantly throughout the league and in every game those situations don’t change. As you well said there are different profiles that are more notable in certain teams and I don’t have any preference and we need to be able to be ready to come up against the different teams and the different philosophies.”

“This quarter of the season gone past, he has shown his influence in their game.”

“It’s our objective. But having said that, two games ago against Leicester we were able to put up a constant performance against them. We always try to be constant and regular in the function of the team but in the last two games we haven’t been able to extend our pretensions for the duration of the game.”

“Every campaign that supports the inclusion I always support it.”

“No, it is not on purpose. The physical level of the whole league has declined. And also the opposition conditions the development of how a team performs physically. The total distance that the teams run in the Premier League is lower this year than last season. But in the values of intensity, we have maintained those values or improved them from last season.”

“I can’t say for certain that he hasn’t played two games in four days in a very long time.”

“I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Sincerely, anything I tell you would be a hypothesis that I am not totally certain of. What is clear is that a calendar so overcharged, doesn’t bear in mind the development of the preparation so I have serious doubts over the future of professional football because it is constantly commercialised, product that is constantly worse. It is considered to sell more games but it ignores whether the teams are in conditions to offer better results. I use the terms that the industry of football uses, but it is difficult for me to think about it in those terms but that the Premier League offers half of its players to the World Cup - or a great amount of players from the Premier League go the World Cup. It (the Premier League) is interrupted ten days before the start of the World Cup and the World Cup which is the most desirable thing in football is played with the footballers and the coaches of the national teams with the minimum possibility of offering a developed team and the only thing that it generates is that what is on show every time is worse.”

“The weather and the traditions, they are belonging to each county and it’s been done so in the same way for a long time. And that is in the roots of the fans and of each country. But the World Cup is an episode that is played every four years and is a homage that football makes to the world. But to make that worse - it doesn’t make sense. The other day, casually I was reading or I came about something where the players were in the World Cup in 86 in Mexico and the players were complaining about the temperature in which games were played at and the response from those were that the players should focus on what they are paid to do which is to play and it is true that each of us should have an opinion on what we do and a lot of times we talk more than we should, like in this case with myself. But it brings me great sadness how football is deteriorating. Imagine that I look at football how it is now, from the best league in the world. If you look at the realities of other countries you would see it with a lot of clarity what I am saying. That is why I was saying that it doesn’t make sense, to want to multiply the commercialisation of a product and to want to increase the incomings when the product is getting worse.”