Gabriel Agbonlahor has agreed with Jesse Marsch’s comments on ‘over-training’ being the reason behind Leeds United’s injury situation this season. The Whites have suffered prolonged absences to a number of key players over the course of the campaign with the likes of Kalvin Phillips, Liam Cooper, Patrick Bamford, Luke Ayling and Robin Koch all having missed a number of matches.
In an interview with talkSPORT yesterday, Marsch detailed how he has looked to reduce the training load on the players as a way of reducing the risk of injury. Under Marcelo Bielsa, Leeds were the fittest team in the country and his philosophy helped bring an extraordinary amount of success to the club.
However this season, their hard work began to catch up with the players as results took a turn for the worse, predominantly due to who was unavailable. And speaking on talkSPORT this morning, Agbonlahor has backed Marsch’s comments, stating that due to how hard Bielsa worked them, injuries were always going to arrive.
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The former Aston Villa forward said: “I have heard that from the Leeds United camp that they don’t mind training hard - players don’t mind training hard - but you need the right recovery. I heard that Bielsa’s training is similar to a game, the intensity.
“You can’t do that three or four days a week and expect to have that intensity in a game. They’re human beings, they’re going get injuries. Muscle injuries like calves, hamstrings, thigh injuries.
“Normally the week without a midweek game, the Monday would be the warm down from the Saturday. Tuesday would be the hard session where you’re covering the most ground, high intensity. Wednesday would be a cool down, Thursday you start doing bits that’s not as hard, Friday a little bit.
“Then the game on Saturday where you put it in. I feel the Leeds players were overworked under Bielsa but that was his style.”
