Former Leeds United star David Prutton has conceded that the biggest challenge for Marcelo Bielsa’s side this season is to maintain their consistency.
Leeds are yet to lose a league game in the current campaign and are at the top of the Championship table on 18 points from their opening eight fixtures.
The Whites are being touted as potential promotion contenders, but there are concerns about the size of their squad and their ability to sustain their level of performance until the end of the campaign.
Prutton believes most good teams are composed mainly of unremarkable but consistent footballers and they are paid to put in shifts week-in-week-out to push their side forward.
He feels the key to Leeds’ success this season will depend on such players and their ability to remain at a consistent level until the end of the season.
The former Leeds man wrote in his column for the Yorkshire Evening Post: “You look at the top players in the best teams around the world and a lot of them are naturally brilliant and can do amazing things with a football.
“But the rest of them are paid for constant delivery and consistency of performance as in knowing that you will get seven or eight out of ten from them every single week for however long the season lasts.
“That’s the biggest challenge for this Leeds side – not can they do it because they have shown they can do it, but can they do it over the course of a season and maintain pace and pressure on other teams?”
Leeds made a similar start to last season as well but badly tailed off to finish in the bottom half of the Championship.
But Prutton is of the opinion that there is something tangibly different about Bielsa’s team this term.
“But I think for Leeds, as much as they were at the top of the table in similar circumstances last season, this feels like they are setting a stronger pace for teams to try and catch them.”
