Isn't it great to look forward to a weekend without that lingering dread of what the football will bring? No more 3.00 a.m. hysterics, no more furtive looks at the league table, and a lot less wailing online among fellow sufferers.
That has to be the worst season ever for us. This one hovered and dipped, peppered with new injuries and awful performances. Our victories were frantic, our losses accumulated along with our goals against, our decline gathered an almost unstoppable momentum, until our young guns led us away from the abyss.
Before the season started, we made serious mistakes. We wasted the last seven games of the previous season when we were safe, not giving our key players a break, even though many of them had been playing nonstop through Covid and the Euros. At the same time, we did not properly blood our under-23's and integrate them into the first team squad when we had the chance to do so.
Letting Alioski go, a seasoned Bielsa warrior, injury proof and full of running, was bad enough, but replacing him with Firpo? We then compound the mistake by signing DJ when a blind man in a coalmine could see we needed a midfielder.
We were forwarned in our opening game against sc um, we were far too open. Our man marking system wasn't worth a flying fu©k. Players were getting injured and Bielsa could not put out the same team two weeks running. Bizarrely, he persisted with DJ up front, when we had Joffy champing at the bit in the wings. If one win in our first seven didn't ring the alarm bells, our capitulation against Southampton away should have. The game that did the most damage, though, was Brentford at home, when we lost Coops, KP and Bamford to long term injuries.
Someone, somewhere, removed the batteries from a lot of hearing aids at this point. We had long term injuries, we were closing in on the drop zone, no, we didn't need new players in the transfer window, because Forshaw was the new Jesus Christ, returning to save us. Jesus Christ!
The worse the situation got, the harder MB tried to make plan A work. Increased murderball sessions and square pegs in round holes were the only tools in his strategy box. Something had to give, and sadly, it was him.
Whatever his failings, who did not grieve at his demise, or at his shameful departure from Elland Road? He redeemed our club and returned us to greatness and we treated him, at the end, like a pariah. His loyalty to players and insistence on playing the game properly were noble. His integrity was ingrained in every fibre of the club, from the backroom to the clerical staff to the players at every level. We had an identity again.
It would always have been hard to replace MB, but to do it with 12 games to go was an act of desperation only Leeds could conjure up. We will talk about the last 12 games for years to come. The statistics show that we gained 15 points, but what they cannot convey is the utterly exhausting rollercoaster of a journey, stretching credulity to the last moments of the season when, hurtling inexorably into the Championship, we pulled an astonishing result out of the ether against 9 men at Brentford. In those twelve games, we scored three game changing goals in the 90th minute or later, we came back from 2-0 against to win 3-2 against Wolves and we endured the revival of our fellow strugglers in the basement as we all scrambled towards safety.
Somehow we escaped. Our defence was the worst on record to survive in the Premier League, and we lost all 12 games against teams in the top 6. We showed the courage Bielsa instilled in us, in those last twelve games, but it could not hide the chaotic, if necessary transition from what we knew and loved, to what we did not understand and did not like. Next season will bring new challenges and unexpected adventures. We march on together in the Premier League, but we are far from safe.
Now the dust has settled
posted on 28/5/22
Excellent post Marschian 👏🏼
posted on 28/5/22
i just don't get all the negativity, we stayed up, does not matter how.... because we won more points than 3 other teams. yes we all knew mb was struggling in the end, there is not ever or will be enough gratitude for what he did for us....however football is fickle to say the least. we all know money & a great manager / coach is the only hope for success. every single manager fails at some point, give jm a chance
posted on 28/5/22
We all say that Bielsa had integrity, but integrity doesn't win football matches. He was a very good championship manager, but was found lacking in the premiership after over achieving the first season. A good example is that a very poor Everton side that was struggling to score goals beat us three to nil, all because Lampard had met Bielsa's style before in the championship and knew how to beat him because he wouldn't change, and other good sides did the same with ease. The Bielsa era got us promoted and a big thank's for that, but sadly he couldn't do what Revie and Wilkinson did, and now it's time to move on.
posted on 28/5/22
Have to disagree with it being the worst season ever for us. I’m fact it’s probably too 5 of the last 18 years?
posted on 28/5/22
Bielsa did not "over achieve".
Bielsa achieved. Two memorable seasons. Success that we could only imagine in our dreams.
Sadly the wheels came off this last season and he has to take a share of the responsibility.
Hopefully JM will be also be successful. If he achieves, I won't be describing his success as overachievement.
posted on 28/5/22
comment by JackCharlton (U19203)
posted 1 hour, 4 minutes ago
Bielsa did not "over achieve".
Bielsa achieved. Two memorable seasons. Success that we could only imagine in our dreams.
Sadly the wheels came off this last season and he has to take a share of the responsibility.
Hopefully JM will be also be successful. If he achieves, I won't be describing his success as overachievement.
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this
posted on 29/5/22
comment by JackCharlton (U19203)
posted 19 hours, 3 minutes ago
Bielsa did not "over achieve".
Bielsa achieved. Two memorable seasons. Success that we could only imagine in our dreams.
Sadly the wheels came off this last season and he has to take a share of the responsibility.
Hopefully JM will be also be successful. If he achieves, I won't be describing his success as overachievement.
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Spot on!
posted on 29/5/22
How good a manager Marcelo is could be debated at length, what isnt is the fact he is one of the best coaches in the world, as Pep said anyone who plays under him becomes a better player and it was plain to see at ER.
posted on 29/5/22
comment by icub4me (U10576)
posted 1 day, 3 hours ago
We all say that Bielsa had integrity, but integrity doesn't win football matches. He was a very good championship manager, but was found lacking in the premiership after over achieving the first season.
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The players we used in the Premiership - in our first Prem season back - was mainly our Championship team. Yes, they probably did overachieve. Bielsa worked wonders with players who mostly were not Prem level.
Our strengthening attempts were hit & miss, but the thing that sunk us last season was the high number of injuries to key players combined with the small squad.
Why anybody would suggest that Bielsa was Championship level only boggles my mind. He had a successful first season in the Prem without having a wholesale clear-out of the players who got us there.
Perhaps if AR and the 49'ers had stuck their hands in their pockets for the 2021-22 season and got Bielsa some players who were better than those we had already (his only stipulation to buying more players) then they might not have felt the need to sack the best manager we've had in decades.
The problem wasn't Bielsa or his system, it was having to implement it with inferior players.
posted on 29/5/22
Agree with Leedsfan on this. Responsibility needs to be taken by Radrizzani, Marathe and Orta. 21-22 was clearly a near-total disaster - we went backwards, in fact.
It worries me enormously that Orta is still head of recruitment. Marsch has earned his role of the dice.