Marcelo Bielsa’s plan B has always been to execute plan A better at Leeds United, but he hinted at changes in his long-awaited press conference on Thursday.
Facing the media for the first time in 104 days, the Whites head coach previewed Sunday’s trip to Cardiff City via video link from a room at Elland Road.
In just his third sentence he made it clear the football United had been playing before the hiatus would not be the same football they would be playing for the run-in.
Pablo Hernandez is expected to be the only first-team regular missing from the line-up in Wales, but that may not stop Bielsa changing his tactical approach.
“We think [they will respond] well [to the break],” he said. “[The] players have done a big effort so far.
“They work very responsibly, but the football we are going to play is not the same football we played before.
“For this reason, it’s very important to wait for the matches to be played before analysing our performance.”
It has been roughly four weeks since the players began returning to Thorp Arch for individual training slots, working one-on-one with coaches at a distance.
In that time, Bielsa has slowly moved the training on as they edged closer and closer to the restart on June 21.
“When we started to work at Thorp Arch the first week was individual technique and it was something we had to plan a lot because we had to do a lot of training because we had one player with one coach, so we had to plan a lot of training during this week,” he said.
“Second week it was with small groups, defensive line with the possession midfielder and the other five players were the three attackers and two offensive midfielders.
“There was specific work for each line.
“Third week we did a lot of football in different ways [like] 11 v 11. This week was similar as a week where we have to play at the end of the weekend.”
