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Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa has claimed that Ian Poveda is an individual in the squad that has perhaps deserved more minutes this season than he’s received.

Poveda, 21, is a highly-rated winger that is a part of the senior Whites squad, but his game time has been limited.

The London-born youngster hasn’t started any of his 11 Premier League appearances, with his only starts coming in two cup ties.

He’s an attacker that brings incredible pace and energy whenever he enters the field for late cameo appearances, and he got a rare chance off the bench earlier in the week during the 1-1 league draw with Liverpool.

Bielsa has been discussing Poveda in his Friday press conference, explaining that he’s a quality young player that just needs to do more to try get himself up the pecking order.

Unfortunately, he’s behind the quality wingers Jack Harrison and Raphinia, plus Helder Costa is another option from the bench in the wide positions.

“He is a player with a great capacity to unbalance. He is a player who has dribbling skills that are difficult to decipher. But like I was saying about Tyler [Roberts], he needs to create these attempts into something that impacts the game,” Bielsa told Leeds Live.

“And there’s also a question that is indefensible, that you have to be able to play to gain conclusions in this sense and he’s had very few minutes to show the conditions like this, not because he doesn’t deserve them but because I’ve taken decisions that have positioned him behind Raphinha, Harrison and Helder Costa.

“But in some way he deserves more minutes due to the quality that he has.”

TBR’s View:

As a raw talent, Poveda is an exciting player at Leeds that plays with a real freedom on the pitch.

He’s someone that looks like he’s got a lot of character to get the ball and be positive, but he’ll need to improve his all-round game to reach the levels of his more senior teammates.

Raphinha is someone he can learn so much studying from, and Poveda should take Bielsa’s latest comments about him as a massive confidence boost.