The Whites were branded naive in some quarters, patronizing in others, after losing 6-2 to Manchester United. Marcelo Bielsa still bristles at the thought that it was a turning point, but in his next 24 Premier League games, the newly promoted Leeds conceded just 24 goals and finished ninth.
So getting carried away with Saturday’s heartbreaking 5-1 loss would be almost as reckless for losers as it is for winners.
That said, it did expose issues, especially one, which, unlike the leaderboards posted before all teams have played, should not be completely ignored.
The danger of reading too much in a game is that Bruno Fernandes, who scored a hat-trick, and Paul Pogba, who created four goals, were so good in the areas that Kalvin Phillips normally patrols that it’s hard to gauge how badly they are. lost him. . After all, it was Phillips, given the turnaround in December, hooked at halftime with his team down 4-1.
However, it is hard to believe that he would not have been better with him on the field.
Fitness concerns led Leeds to voluntarily dispense with two of their top three central midfielders as their new season began.
Stuart Dallas was brought back to center when Bielsa decided new left-back Junior Firpo had 45 minutes on his legs despite missing the last two preseason friendlies. Within four minutes, Dallas was tied, though the quality and distance of Luke Ayling’s attack took most of the credit.
Dallas was powerless to fight the onslaught of four goals in 16 minutes after Ayling’s shot hit the net, one fueled by a vibrant stadium, the other unsupported by their own fans’ determination to sing like they were winning.
Seeing Phillips no closer to the action than a few stretches on the sidelines felt more costly.
They could have been the right decisions on a large scale. Bielsa is demanding with the physical form that he demands before choosing players and the results are almost superhuman athleticism. He has evidence that we do not have, statistical and visual, to tell him the preparation of Phillips and Firpo.
Phillips won’t be the only Euro 2020 actor who doesn’t start the season or does it slowly. Only five people played more minutes in the tournament and two were goalkeepers.
But it raises questions about the decline in quality when he’s not there. Last season, 10 league games started without Phillips, 28 with. Leeds lost seven without him, eight with, conceding 26 times when Phillipsless, 28 when he started.
Playing without your best player is difficult for any team, as is covering him when he plays in a specialist position like the center in Bielsa’s 4-1-4-1. Anyone close to being that good will not only want to play when the main player is injured or suspended, so the substitute probably has to be worth a spot elsewhere.
Center-back Pascal Struijk had the most chances at work despite being substituted 21 minutes into the first. Midfielder Mateusz Klich, who provided much of Leeds’ sporadic threat in the first half when he moved from the inside out, was used and at the end of the campaign it was Robin Koch, there at Old Trafford as in preseason.
“I also played in Germany sometimes as a midfielder, so for me it is nothing completely new,” Koch said, referring to international and club football on Thursday. “My main position is that of central, but for me it is not a big problem”.
Saturday it was. Manchester United did indeed play two number 10s part-time. Fernandes started there, but as soon as Koch joined in the opening seconds he tried to take Koch on a tour of the field, sometimes deep, sometimes as a center forward, often on the left wing.
Pogba, whose position was supposedly last, naturally abhorred the void and filled it regularly. His four assists showed that he did not hug the touchline. It looked like she had more chalk in her hair than her boots until you realized it was Pogba and that she was in fashion.
But the fluidity added by Bradfordian Mason Greenwood, Scott McTominay and Hull-born Dan James seemed to leave Koch wondering at times how far to follow the Portuguese. At no point was he confident.
Bielsa thought “he was a dynamic player, he was present, he was willing, he was committed. He made a lot of effort and was present throughout the game ”. He knows more about the game than probably everyone who reads or writes this together, but it smells more like psychology than reality. At the time of Koch’s excellent pass, which ultimately led to the disappointing Raphinha missing a good opportunity, the horse had shot off and was trotting around the winner’s enclosure.
Source: www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-08-16 05:15:49
