Faith and principles - why Jean-Kevin Augustin cannot walk in and take Patrick Bamford's Leeds United shirt - Dan Chapman

The word about Marcelo Bielsa after Leeds lost to Wigan this weekend was ‘stubborn’. Stubborn tactics, stubborn selection, stubborn ideals. But stubborn – unreasonably obstinate, not yielding to persuasion – is the wrong word to describe Marcelo Bielsa.

You might as well accuse the Pope of stubbornly believing in God. There have been many centuries of argument to persuade him otherwise, but he’s still not having it, even though the second coming looks about as likely as a Pat Bamford hat-trick. Stubborn is not the word for unshakeable faith, and it’s not the right word for Marcelo Bielsa, either.

Without principles, Bielsa is not Bielsa. His idea of football is not confined to the pitch; one of the most important training sessions of last summer was the Thorp Arch litter pick.

The cultural change has been as important as the footballing change for a group of what were average players – the long days of training, the commitment to diet, the fitness work – and the benefits have been obvious.

Everything has its downside and Leeds were trapped by theirs against Wigan. The first reason why Kiko Casilla and Pat Bamford play is loyalty, a virtue Bielsa places deliberately at the core of his work with such a small squad.

He expects the players to trust each other and trust him, but how can he ask that if he doesn’t trust them? The downsides of trust are Kiko flapping and Bambo shooting backwards.

But they’re the downsides of something more important and longer lasting than a moment in one game. Trusting Casilla might cost three points against Wigan. Bielsa believes loyalty will win enough points in a season for that not to matter.

Jean-Kévin Augustin has entered a system engineered not only to burn off micrograms of body mass, but to reinforce the principles of trust and loyalty on which Bielsa builds his team. You can’t, in short, walk right in and take Bamford’s shirt.

Whether he’s scoring now or not, Bamford has been through the process, working himself to fitness and adaptation in the Under-23s, earning his right to replace Kemar Roofe. What would it say about Bielsa’s principles if he decided that what applied to Bamford doesn’t apply to Big Kev?

It’s not a stubborn protection of beliefs for the sake of them, but necessary for Bielsa’s belief system to work on the pitch. Bielsa was challenged last season about his lack of a plan B, but to him, that’s not a lack.