Liam Cooper provided some fascinating insight into Marcelo Bielsa’s infamous ‘murderball’ training sessions and claimed he and his team mates will not change their style after their winless start to the season continued at St James’ Park. When asked after the match whether he could envisage their maiden win coming soon,
Liam Cooper said: “I think so, sometimes you can listen to the outside noise about wanting to change but the boys know we’ll never do that we know what’s made us successful. We know that we have to be at our best and we can’t afford to have six, seven players turn up on the night we need the full 11 and the three coming off the bench as well. That’s what we pride ourselves on we need that, if we keep going, keep improving and keep buying into that it’ll come.”
Despite the slow start, the faith from the club’s supporters towards Bielsa is unwavering and that is unlikely to change any time soon. The relentless intensity with which Leeds play has been heavily praised and as Cooper mentioned, that won’t change because of a few poor results. Bielsa’s well-documented ‘murderball’ regime is at the heart of his methods and his skipper lifted the lid on exactly what those sessions entail.
Liam Cooper said: “It’s usually four segments of five minutes. Multi balls rolling on the pitch, he expects the intensity on the pitch, no fouls so you can get stuck into each other. It’s high intensity, I’m sure Marcelo will invite you down to a session but it’s hell for leather, we get a lot out of it. It’s probably the best session of the week for me and the lads so no we enjoy it’s part and parcel of what we do.”
The key factor of Bielsa’s reign in West Yorkshire is his resilience in maintaining his favoured playing style regardless of results. As of yet, whenever there has been a period of poor form under the Argentine, Leeds have always re-found their feet and that is exactly what they will be expecting to do over the coming weeks.
