'He has so much potential but he rarely uses it' - Augustin is Bielsa's big Leeds gamble

Leeds United fans looking for details about Jean-Kevin Augustin will comb through his player profile and find two pieces of information which stand out.

Firstly, as a teenager, the forward played alongside Kylian Mbappe in France's unstoppable side that won the 2016 European Under-19 Championship, with Augustin finishing as top scorer and the tournament's best player ahead of Mbappe.

Secondly, the former teenage phenomenon scored just one goal in the entirety of 2019 at both RB Leipzig and Monaco, and both teams seem happy to let him leave despite high expectations.

The signing of Augustin is a big gamble for Leeds, who are one point off the top of the Championship table and hoping that Marcelo Bielsa can finally lead them back to the promised land of the Premier League.

Now 22 years old, the French frontman has taken a gamble of his own, stepping down from the top flight to show he has what it takes to finally reach the heights that prompted Leipzig to spend €13 million (£11m/$14.3m) on him in 2017.

Leipzig signed him from Paris Saint-Germain, where he was behind Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Edinson Cavani in the pecking order in the previous two seasons. Any player, particularly a teenage talent, would find it hard to displace strikers of that pedigree, meaning Augustin was often played on the wing when chances came his way.

In Leipzig, he initially had a lot of success in his preferred central role, scoring 12 goals in all competitions in his debut season. However, despite that breakthrough, he returned for the 2018-19 season out of shape and, as a result, had a falling out with head coach Ralf Rangnick.

Like Bielsa, Rangnick is known for being a strict disciplinarian and made an example of Augustin in public when he did not live up to the high standards expected.

"I'll say it with a wink: If there's a player, who doesn't really know if he's happy about me as a coach, it's probably him. And he has good reasons for that," Rangnick told Bild.

"I'm going to get on his nerves just as much this year until he does what he has to do. He has so much potential and rarely uses it. We won't give up until he can continually show it. I'm far from giving up. I prefer hanging out with him every day."

Just over a year after those comments from Rangnick, Leipzig look to have totally given up on the forward.

A loan to Monaco should have seen Augustin fare better, especially back in his native France, but once again he found himself down the depth chart, with Wissam Ben Yedder and Islam Slimani preferred to him in attack.

In 13 games for the principality club, he scored just once - in the Coupe de la Ligue win over Marseille in October. Leonardo Jardim, like Rangnick, saw something in him, but was unhappy with his goalscoring return.

"He's a quality player, physically strong. He's not a goalscorer like Ben Yedder," then-coach Jardim told reporters. "With his physique and movement, he can help us score. That's what you expect from an attacker."

Goal

Augustin was linked with a £40m ($52m) move to Everton in December 2018, but now finds himself playing in the English second tier.

Bielsa will have to lay down the law to get the best from the attacker, but the talent is definitely there. At Leipzig, midfielder Marcel Sabitzer criticised his performances to the media, as even his team-mates could see that he was wasting his ability.

A pacey, technical attacker, Augustin could be sensational for Leeds, where he will play under a perfectionist who expects his players to work all day, doing both physical and mental training from 9.00 am to 7.00 or 8.00 pm in the evening.

Gabriel Batistuta once had Augustin's problems, arriving at his first club Newell's Old Boys out of shape, but Bielsa quickly turned him around and set him on the path to becoming a world-class striker.

“When I arrived, I was fat, it’s that simple," Batistuta explained in his autobiography. “I liked alfajores [a traditional Argentine biscuit]. The first thing Bielsa did was get rid of them and teach me to train in the rain. I hated him for it."

Countless players have credited Bielsa with developing them into the stars they became, including Diego Simeone, Ander Herrera and Benjamin Mendy.

Augustin is the latest project to come onto Bielsa's desk, but the Argentine may finally be the manager the Frenchman needs to live up to his enormous potential, and in turn be the player to help Leeds fans achieve their dreams.