Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds show in moral victory over Arsenal why they will be treasured in Premier League

The Championship side outplayed the Gunners for large spells but ultimately exited the FA Cup in a 1-0 defeat

Bielsa watches on as Leeds push Arsenal close (EPA)

Mikel Arteta could smile by the end, but admitted that his team had “suffered”, and not in the way intended.

This wasn’t down to Arsenal running so much it hurt, but Leeds United doing that to them. There were long passages of the first half of their FA Cup third-round tie where it looked like Marcelo Bielsa’s side would overwhelm Arsenal.

If it wasn’t the perfect performance from Arteta’s side, though, the manager still had the perfect line.

“It’s like going to dentist,” he said, when asked what it’s like to play this Leeds. “They make it so tough… they are building something very powerful there.”

Arteta is a declared Bielsa disciple but what was so striking about the Argentine’s first game against a Premier League side with Leeds was just how much they took to the stage, how much they initially put on a show for anyone really watching them for the first time.

It was seriously impressive. Many might naturally point to the fact they were again beaten, and didn’t actually go up last season despite so much similar praise, but the real point is the level of performance Bielsa has lifted this relatively limited squad up to. It should not be forgotten that this was a club that finished 13th the season before he took over. Bielsa has not just restored a sense of identity and purpose to Leeds, but obviously given them such a discernible tactical identity.

When you watch these players, you don’t just instantly know how it’s a Bielsa team, but realise how well drilled they are, how rigorously they’re playing to a design. It raises a pertinent question, as they hope to rise up and out of the Championship.

How many of the current 20 Premier League teams are currently better coached than Leeds? How many are so obviously over-performing, due to an over-arching collective plan that gets the better out of each individual?

The answer, generally, is not many. You can obviously rule out Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola since they are probably the two best in the world at the moment, even if Manchester City are suffering a dip.

Brendan Rodgers has had a brilliant effect on Leicester City, and Graham Potter, Ralph Hassenhuttl and Daniel Farke are at least trying to impose similar frameworks on their sides even if relative differences in resources have meant results don’t necessarily look that brilliant. That can’t be said of Nuno Espirito Santo or Chris Wilder of course, who have had supreme impact on the actual table. The latter has so far wildly over-performed with properly original tactical ideas at Sheffield United, even if some who have worked with Wilder wonder how much is due to the unique tightness of a group that has come up together and whether they will soon fall off.

Marcelo Bielsa has influenced two generations of managers (PA)

That would still be no mark against Wilder, as Burnley can testify to. Sean Dyche was a forerunner to Sheffield United, and the rigour he has instilled in his side has been replicated in a different way by Roy Hodgson with Crystal Palace.

But a greater difference with some of these sides – especially Wolves, Burnley and Palace – is that it is primarily drilling in an organised reactive system, rather than the genuinely more difficult task of co-ordinating attacking football. Leeds display that in abundance.

It is conspicuously missing at some of the biggest Premier League clubs, not least Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

Frank Lampard is trying to instil at Chelsea, and is making huge progress, but there is still a sense of a young coach finding his feet as much as the team.

So, how many? It might genuinely be as high as 14 clubs who aren’t as well coached as this Leeds. It begs the question of why nobody has appointed Bielsa before now, but then his idiosyncrasies are well known. Clubs don’t so much pick him, as he picks them.

He may not necessarily lift Leeds up to the Premier League. There is always that fear of mere moral victory about what he does. But the improvement is clear. It’s like going to the dentist for opposition. And like being taken for the most exhilarating of rides for everyone else, especially the players.