Burnley 1-1 Leeds United: Demanding - The Square Ball 30/8/21
SHINING
Written by Moscowhite • Daniel Chapman
On a day when the fans were frustrated, the players were
bruised, and everyone ended up feeling a bit let down without quite being able
to define why, Marcelo Bielsa made it a teachable moment, because he always
does. There’s always something new to learn and or consider, although whether
this always makes up for not getting three points from some miserable
Lancashire town is another matter.
“The difference is that for us to play well we need our
creative players to be on top of their game,” he said after drawing in Burnley.
“Their style of play means it doesn’t demand that their players shine. This is
something of value when you’re describing a team.”
If you didn’t see the game, Burnley’s passing stats will
tell you a lot about their style of play. After three games, they’re bottom of
the league for attempted short and medium length passes, eighth for long balls.
(Don’t let those numbers completely deceive you: top two for attempted long
balls are Liverpool and Leeds.) They’re top of the league for high balls.
Collectively their players have had the fewest touches of the ball in the
Premier League. This is all in line with how last season went, when West Brom
and Newcastle got involved in a couple of the categories.
The point is the imprecision. Percentage of passes completed
is rock bottom, 67 per cent. Burnley aren’t playing the ball foot to foot, or
even foot to head. It’s area to area, into the mixer where it doesn’t matter if
Chris Wood gets his head on the ball, as long as he stops a defender from doing
it. The knockdown doesn’t have to go to a teammate, just near enough for them
to challenge. The players needn’t concern themselves with creating overloads
out wide, they just need enough space to swing a cross. All this puts the other
team under pressure, and relieves the pressure on Burnley, and best of all,
they don’t even need to play well to do it. Wood might not win a single header
all day and it doesn’t matter. All their crossing might be off-target but they
can just keep trying. The implications of players having an off day are low,
because they’re only being asked to get near enough.
That’s not so for Marcelo Bielsa’s players, and he always
says two challenges face them in the Premier League. When up against richer and
more accomplished opponents, Leeds have to force them to play worse. And when
other teams try to force Leeds into playing worse, Leeds have to maintain their
own game. “For us to play well we need our creative players to be on top of
their game,” he said. If you’re one of Burnley’s creative players, well, first
of all you don’t exist. Second, if you’re Ashley Barnes and think that’s you,
you can create nothing but still bump things along by trying to break Stuart
Dallas’ hip in mid-air. It’s an oft-repeated joke from the GFH era at Leeds
that they refused to buy Barnes because he had worse Football Manager stats
than Luke Varney. Now he plays for Burnley in the Premier League, the joke is
supposed to be on us. But, still, he had worse Football Manager stats than Luke
Varney. That’s not something Barnes could be proud of anywhere but Turf Moor.
It’s always going to be harder for Leeds’ players under
Bielsa than for Burnley’s under Sean Dyche, despite the latter’s sergeant-major
roleplay. At full-time at Turf Moor old pals Liam Cooper and Chris Wood were
deep in conversation, the Leeds captain holding up four fingers to make a point
to the Burnley striker. My imagination is running wild about Liam saying, “We
had four training sessions,” and Chris saying, “Yeah, we had that last week,”
and Liam saying, “No, every day.”
It’s an old saw, a mixture of disbelief about the work
Bielsa puts his players through to finish 9th, and our admiration for the
players who go through it. Last season Aston Villa finished 11th, and had their
training sessions moved to the afternoon to allow them long lie-ins and more
time for playing Call of Duty into the night. The benefits of early starts,
late finishes and hours of rigour between were easy for Bielsa’s players to
feel when they were romping the Championship. Keeping their discipline in the
middle of the Premier League must be much harder. Couldn’t they just have a day
off, one day, if they’re going to finish mid-table anyway? The answer is a
stern Bielsa finger wag, an emphatic word, “No!”
After games like these, Leeds fans struggle to see the point
of it all too. This is one of the occasional Bielsa weekends when everyone
wakes up on Monday asking variations of, ‘Can’t we just…?’ Can’t we just play
two up top and go long? Can’t we just play two at the back against their two
strikers, instead of three? Can’t we just try playing a different way? Can’t we
just play the kids, with or without getting Eddie Gray in? Can’t we just sign a
midfielder even if he’s astrologically, scientifically and biologically
imperfect by a mathematically irrelevant degree?
That last one — the transfer window — has amplified
everything about the winless start to the league season, and every aspect of it
is an argument, justified on all sides and therefore unwinnable. Doing two
seasons’ worth of signings last summer was good, but will it work if we don’t
shop for more now? Keeping our best players was good, but will they stay next
summer if we’ve not finished higher? Investing in the Under-23s is good, but
what about players ready now? Not overspending on a certain player is good, but
what if not paying the premium is a false economy after ending up with nobody?
Then there are last season’s signings. Spending £30m was good. How long do we
wait for Rodrigo to look worth it?
From the owners’ perspective, if it saves them another
cheque, they answer the last one with as long as it takes, because they’ll
think that is on him, not them. Likewise if Raphinha wants to leave because our
league position hasn’t improved. Isn’t it his job to improve it? And isn’t this
sort of the point of sport, and why I’d prefer transfer windows to close before
the season starts, and the hysteria around them to reduce. The idea of the
league season is that you put together the best squad you can and send them out
to play games against what everyone else has got. That’s Bielsa’s shrug when
asked about signing cover — he’s got a group of players he likes, he’s got the
Under-23s if he needs them, so now it’s team against team, style against style,
each trying to impose on the other to find out who can get the most points.
Which is why Burnley were an unhelpful team to face at this
point. There wasn’t much choice about Rodrigo once Mateusz Klich was ruled out,
like Junior Firpo, with a positive Covid-19 test. But after this perhaps we’d
be as well letting Tyler Roberts prove he’s worth his new contract instead. The
rest of it, in this season’s new mood of letting tackles go, should have
pleased Sean Dyche, who complained at Elland Road last season that, “The game
is in a really precarious moment where physicality is at a minimum … It is
still the people’s game, and the people have to be careful what they’re wishing
for.” I don’t know what people like at Turf Moor, although anti-racism gestures
don’t seem high up the list, but if what Burnley are playing is their game,
they’re welcome to its combination of brutal fouls on others and crying about
soft tackles on them.
Leeds will just have to play their football elsewhere,
although after going behind on the hour, when failing to clear a corner meant
Wood could deflect a shot past Illan Meslier from a couple of yards, Jamie
Shackleton arrived to take United’s forward momentum up a few notches. Bielsa
said a couple of weeks ago that he’ll know when young players are ready for the
first team because established players will make it obvious they want them
there, and I don’t think Raphinha could love Shackleton much more. He’s a
barrage from wing-back, giving to Raphinha down the line, getting it back
again, giving it back, getting it again, they’re like a trapeze act swinging
into Burnley’s box. On the other wing Jackie Harrison, foiled most of the day
by Matt Lowton, got a similar double act going with his old pal Stuart Dallas,
and Leeds found the creative ascendancy lacking from the first hour. It was
just a matter of getting the ball to Pat Bamford where he’d like it — a yard
from the line with the goal open, it turned out, four minutes from time — then
getting him away from Raphinha before a celebratory flying kick took Pat’s head
off. Raphinha had already left Charlie Taylor behind him in a crumpled heap,
though that was by dribbling through him. Perhaps he wanted to show Dyche the best
of both worlds.