How Marcelo Bielsa dismantled Burnley in bittersweet home win as Leeds United manager

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Leeds United face Burnley at Turf Moor later today, with the opponents being a game with significance for iconic Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa.

Marcelo Bielsa won three and drew once during four games in charge of Leeds United against Burnley. Meanwhile, Daniel Farke often struggles against Burnley, having managed more games against the Clarets than Bielsa.

The Argentine is now manager of Uruguay, but Leeds’ current boss will have to face the fact Opta’s supercomputer suggests Burnley are favourites against Leeds for Saturday’s fixture at Turf Moor.

The Leeds United News team have provided their Burnley vs Leeds score predictions, with each predicting a win. That evokes memories of Leeds’ last Premier League win over the Clarets, which came under Bielsa.

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Marcelo Bielsa’s last home win for Leeds came against Burnley

Leeds fans believe Burnley and Scott Parker will be relegated this season, which is what happened in the last campaign Burnley faced Leeds in the Premier League. Leeds stayed up at the expense of the Clarets.

Following a 1-1 draw at Turf Moor in August 2021, Leeds beat Burnley 3-1 in January 2022. That, funnily enough, came during a period where they also faced West Ham United in their next fixture.

The parallel is strange, considering the home and away aspect of each game is simply flipped for the current campaign. That season, they won back-to-back games when the fixtures fell that way; Farke will hope lightning strikes twice.

It was a 3-1 home win followed by a 3-2 away win. However, in bittersweet fashion, they were the final two Leeds wins under Bielsa’s tutelage. He was sacked after a run of one draw and seven defeats in the next eight.

It means Burnley losing 3-1 was the last ever home win for Bielsa, in what was a classic Leeds and Bielsa game. They were few and far between in that period, but Bielsa’s side were very much at their best that day.

Jack Harrison opened the scoring before Maxwel Cornet’s equaliser. Stuart Dallas scored his final goal for the club on 77 minutes, with Dan James adding some gloss to the scoreline in the 92nd minute.

Two of those players are still present and could well be involved today. Do you believe in omens? Are the star aligning?

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Scott Parker and Daniel Farke top unwanted statistic

Predicting what will happen today and predicting the Leeds XI against Burnley are both nearly impossible tasks, but it does represent a game between two teams who have had numerous ups and downs of late.

Burnley have had two relegations and two promotions, while Leeds have had one of each, since the last time those two teams did battle at Premier League level.

Now, it’s Parker vs Farke, but the game three years ago was Sean Dyche facing Bielsa. It’s worlds apart from before and an interesting quirk has emerged regarding the current managers in the dugouts.

They are the bottom two managers for Premier League points-per-game averages of any to oversee 50 games or more in the competition’s history.

That is with Parker averaging 0.75 (P59 W10 D14 L35) per game and Farke 0.61 (P56 W8 D10 L38) per game. Today could be an opportunity for one to significantly boost that figure.