Marcelo Bielsa makes Eddie Nketiah admission after Leeds draw

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Marcelo Bielsa has suggested, in comments reported by Leeds Live, that he perhaps could have made the decision to bring Eddie Nketiah on sooner in Leeds United’s draw with Preston North End on Tuesday.

Leeds left Deepdale with a share of the points. But the draw only came about thanks to a late goal from Nketiah. The Arsenal loanee headed home Jack Harrison’s cross to cancel out Preston’s late opener.

The 20-year-old had actually only been on the pitch for 10 minutes before the goal. Despite Leeds struggling to ask many questions of the Lilywhites, Bielsa only brought Nketiah on once Preston had taken the lead.

And after the game, Bielsa explained the thinking behind the decision to delay the striker’s introduction, before seemingly admitting that he perhaps made an error not making the change with Patrick Bamford sooner.

“Bamford is a player who helps to organise the team. The match was not a tight match. We didn’t have one player who wasn’t playing well. It was difficult to make a change because they were playing well, all of them,” he said, as reported by Leeds Live.

“I was waiting for the decision to put Nketiah in the field. I was waiting for Bamford to slow his play, but after they scored, their goal made me decide to change. Maybe the change could have been before. It’s a possibility. At that moment, before they scored, I thought I needed to keep the structure of the match because we were playing better.”

Nketiah proved a real point in the draw. The striker’s record for Leeds is remarkable given that he is still awaiting his first Championship start.

And it would be no surprise if many fans were imploring Bielsa to pick Nketiah this weekend. Bamford squandered several good chances. And he has now not scored in his last eight appearances.

Bamford does a lot of good work for Leeds. The fans loudly backed the Englishman at Deepdale. But Bielsa is arguably taking a big gamble if Nketiah starts Saturday’s clash with Sheffield Wednesday on the bench.