Paul Heckingbottom has insisted that he cannot suddenly change the style of football at Leeds United this season because of the kind of players he has in his squad.

The 40-year-old took charge of Leeds in February after Thomas Christiansen was sacked, but results have not improved under the new head coach at Elland Road.




He has won just one of his eight games and Leeds have continued to tumble down the Championship table even though they have done enough to stave off any threat of relegation.

There have been calls for Heckingbottom to try and change the way Leeds have been playing to get results, but the Whites boss stressed that he cannot change his squad’s features overnight.
 


He insisted that Leeds cannot just start playing football like Neil Warnock’s Cardiff City all of a sudden as he does not have the players to implement such a style.  

relatedNewsStory

Heckingbottom highlighted that fact Cardiff’s recruitment strategy was tailored to match the way they wanted to play football this season and that is why they have been effective.

The 40-year-old explained on BBC Radio Leeds when asked whether he can change the style of football at Leeds soon: “Everybody who has seen Leeds – Leeds fans, Leeds staff, opposition managers, and opposition players – would have a similar assessment.

“Leeds are a team that want the ball, need to pass the ball, need to create chances because that’s what the design of our players is and that’s what they are comfortable doing.

“For us to say all of a sudden that we are not going to play that way, we are going to play like Cardiff for example. They are second, getting good results but we wouldn’t be effective or would even be less effective because of the type of players we have got.”

And Heckingbottom explained that Warnock knew what he wanted to do with his Cardiff team and recruited accordingly.

“Cardiff have recruited a certain way, where they have got pace, power, size, strength and dominant players on one-v-one situations all over the pitch.

“That’s why they can play that way. They dominate stoppages, they dominate restarts and they are comfortable defending their box and can be really aggressive in the opposition’s box.

“But they have recruited players to perform that way.”