Why Leeds United veteran almost sought Elland Road exit before full extent of Marcelo Bielsa's genius revealed

Renowned for his exacting standards, Bielsa's arrival at Leeds saw the club return to the top table of the English game after 16 years away, leading a team largely made up of Championship players with little Premier League experience to ninth in the top flight.

Among them was current Plymouth Argyle man Adam Forshaw who, in a new interview with The Athletic, has revealed promotion hero Dallas almost sought a move away from Elland Road due to Bielsa's training ground demands.

“We had a full pre-season on the training ground; he didn’t take us away, he didn’t believe in the tours. We had a hotel in Wetherby for six weeks. Between the morning and afternoon sessions, we’d go to the hotel and then, after training, we’d go back and stay there.

"I had a young son and lived two minutes away from the hotel. For six weeks, apart from the weekends, we would stay in the hotel," Forshaw says.

"I never forget Stuart Dallas, who had three kids, saying to me, ‘I can’t do this. I’m going to have to tell the manager I need to leave because this isn’t going to work for me and my family’, and then Bielsa and Leeds went and changed his life. He had never been anywhere near the Premier League before,” the ex-Middlesbrough and Brentford man added.

Dallas retired earlier this year, unable to make a comeback from a femoral fracture sustained during the spring of 2022 in a match against Manchester City. However, his part in Leeds' rise under Bielsa must not be understated. Once regarded as little more than a utility player or winger, Dallas became a goalscoring full-back-turned-central-midfielder, routinely completing the most sprints in a game, until Brazilian forward Raphinha's arrival, that is.

Dallas was a stalwart of the 2019/20 promotion squad which lifted the Championship title in July of that year. He made 45 league appearances, scoring five goals, before featuring in each of Leeds' subsequent 38 Premier League outings during their first season back in the top flight, even managing to increase his goals tally on the previous campaign by three.

Prior to his career-ending injury, Dallas had played 34 times in the Premier League during 2021/22, the majority of which were under Bielsa.