Marcelo Bielsa has praised his ‘rebellious’ Leeds United team for their ‘spirited’ performance against Manchester City.
The Whites went down to 10 men in the first half but managed to secure a 2-1 win thanks to a Stuart Dallas brace.
The ‘Cookstown Cafu’ opened the scoring in the 42nd minute after being set up by Patrick Bamford.
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Just minutes later, skipper Liam Cooper saw red for a dangerous challenge on City forward Gabriel Jesus.
In the second half, Leeds managed to keep their opponents at bay until the last 15 minutes.
Ferran Torres sent a first-time effort past Illan Meslier to end his goalscoring drought for City.
But Dallas bagged an injury-time winner for Leeds to take them up to 45 points in the Premier League.
Reacting to the victory, Bielsa told BBC Sport: “The value of the victory increases because it was achieved in a game where we were dominated and demanded character, effort and personality.
“I think we have to link the victory to the spirit of the players. The spirit of all the players added together creates a uniform effort. It’s very difficult to win games like today. I think we deserved it but the fair thing would have been for City to win it because they had the dominance and the chances.
“From the adversity and effort of the players it was emotional for me. It was a rebellious team. They weren’t resigned to lose what we had at play.”
When asked about Cooper’s sending off, Bielsa added: “I value a lot the English refereeing and with the added factor of VAR all the decisions are justified.”
Bielsa was also asked whether Leeds would target a higher place in the Premier League table. He replied: “New targets? No. The target is always to impose yourself in the next game and in accordance to the results we take, it will leave us in a position we deserve to be.”
Pep Guardiola is widely considered to be Bielsa’s protege, having learned so much about tactics from the Argentinian.
But it was Bielsa who got the better of his counterpart on the day as Leeds showed more character and belief.
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