Leeds lacked width at Burnley so had to go big on Dan James – he will be crucial to Bielsa’s style - The Athletic 3/9/21

By Phil Hay and Mark Carey

The weight of video analysis was the biggest shift for Junior Firpo — more in two weeks as a Leeds United player, he claimed, than in his two years at Barcelona — and the gear-change involved in a transfer to Elland Road is why the club avoid sugar-coating talks with potential signings.

Whatever those players were used to elsewhere, Leeds tell them that it will be different if they come to Thorp Arch. And, as they try to warn anyone thinking of joining, not just in terms of analysis or the amount of training through the week. Firpo is a left-back and like every player in Marcelo Bielsa’s line-up, he has specific and complex responsibilities, even in the era of attacking full-backs.

One does not simply walk into Bielsa’s Leeds and slot in.

The club’s decision to upgrade on Ezgjan Alioski this summer was no slight on a player who coped well enough with Bielsa’s remit for wide defenders.

As a full-back at Leeds, it falls to you to both overlap and underlap, to have the stamina to play box-to-box, to show the positional judgment to defend one-on-one and to be technically adept at passing out of tight spaces, often in areas where the loss of possession carries a high price. Do all that, my son, and the position is yours.

It facilitates what Bielsa’s team is set up to thrive on: width.

The point of discussion around Leeds at present, after two points from their first three league games this season, is the centre of midfield and the need for another body in there — another hallmark of this team is the way Bielsa’s central midfielders play their part in creating space out wide by drifting and interlinking.

But beyond the basic strategy of trying to deny Leeds possession, one way to negate them is to contain them on the flanks. It was part of the story at Burnley on Sunday, where Patrick Bamford’s late goal rescued a point against hosts who had lost their first two league matches. The importance placed on effective width is why so much money was thrown at Manchester United’s Dan James two days later.

Several of Bielsa’s expensive deals at Elland Road have involved wingers: £25 million on James, £17 million on Raphinha, £15 million on Helder Costa, £11 million on Jack Harrison. In their own way, their jobs are as strictly defined as those of his full-backs, constantly required to dovetail with the team-mate playing behind them on that flank, react rapidly to transitional opportunities, attack space in front of them and track back diligently.

Concerns about defensive capabilities were understood to be behind Bielsa’s decision not to pursue Club Bruges’s Noa Lang last month. James (finally) arrives at Leeds knowing he will be asked to graft at both ends of the field.

With hindsight, there was scope for Sunday’s match at Turf Moor to play out exactly as it did when Leeds won 4-0 there in the closing weeks of last season.

Then, Bielsa’s players took until the 44th minute to open the scoring when Mateusz Klich struck from the edge of the box. His finish was skilful but as The Athletic detailed in this recent article, it was generated by an end-to-end counter that started near Leeds’ own penalty area. Quick breaks have long been a weapon in Bielsa’s armoury, a strength that is often overlooked because of their habitual attempts to dominate possession.

Before half-time on Sunday, Leeds had a five-minute period in which they caught out Burnley in near-identical circumstances three times. On each occasion, the attacking move began either inside goalkeeper Illan Meslier’s box or around the edge of it, coming as the home side tried to push forward in a still-goalless game.

In the first instance, Raphinha seemed to get caught in two minds between taking a shot himself and cutting the ball back and ended up prodding an effort wide.

In the second, Harrison’s delivery from the left failed to find a blue Leeds shirt.

And in the third, a Kalvin Phillips ball from that same side came to nothing as Bamford prodded a heavy touch straight to goalkeeper Nick Pope.

Other parts of Leeds’s performance on the day were too unconvincing to argue that they deserved more than a 1-1 draw but those openings showed that the understanding of swift transitional play was still there.

Transition is one of the aspects on which Bielsa concentrates most thoroughly. He believes — as do many modern-day coaches — that turnovers lead to some of the best attacking opportunities. That was true at Turf Moor on Sunday, even though his team failed to make the most of those three excellent situations.

Given the importance of ball recoveries to Leeds, their first three results of the season raise the question of whether their pressing has dipped.

There was little doubt that Bielsa’s 3-3-1-3 at Burnley placed huge pressure on Phillips, something the home side tried to exploit, but pressing is fundamental to any system employed by the Argentinian. It is designed to stop the opposition finding any flow and keep the game in Leeds’s attacking half. A successful press, in Bielsa’s words, is what makes them defend as well as they can. Possession stays a long way from their own net.

As it transpires, Leeds’ press is the second most intense in the Premier League so far, behind only Manchester City.

Leeds have limited opponents to 8.9 passes per defensive action (PPDA) and are one of only four clubs in single digits. PPDA measures the number of passes a side can make before the opponents are able to disrupt their possession. A low number indicates a team who are good at disrupting opposition passing, a high number shows a side that less actively engages an opponent in possession.

It is not a precise gauge for how well Bielsa’s team are actually playing but, after a pre-season in which their physical output rose significantly, their low number does suggest they have been capable of engaging with a good amount of energy.

The higher the dots, the better Leeds are at recovering possession.

The graph reveals how last year’s first season back in the Premier League since 2003-04 (when their football took them to a ninth-place finish) produced their lowest results in that respect, most likely because they were competing with stronger teams than they had previously faced in the Championship.

In the three fixtures so far this season, their numbers are in line with the second half of 2020-21 without being near Bielsa’s best, although turnovers are occurring marginally quicker than they did on average last season.

Once Burnley had scored first last weekend, they seemed to work out where Leeds would try to hurt them, and, having opened themselves up those three times in rapid succession before half-time, tried to swamp Harrison and Raphinha with extra markers.

Harrison’s physical effort over the 90 minutes was exceptional without forcing a breakthrough, in part because of Burnley’s determination to crowd him out. It left little space for overlaps or underlaps. None of Harrison’s nine crosses found a team-mate and the images below show what happened whenever Leeds tried to work him down their left flank.

Raphinha got the same treatment on the other side of the pitch but he was able to break through with a little moment of magic. On 86 minutes, a stepover and some quick feet were finally able to tie Leeds old boy Charlie Taylor in knots and cause enough chaos in the box for Bamford to equalise.

Taylor (first image, below) had survived a previous attack when Raphinha almost drove beyond him, as a stretching tackle allowed other Burnley players to cover. But when the Brazilian found a way through (image two), it set in motion the chain of events that resulted in Bamford diverting a shot from Jamie Shackleton into the net to level the scores.

Bielsa said afterwards that Burnley’s style “doesn’t demand that their players shine” to yield good results.

In other words, physicality and spirited endeavour can work for Sean Dyche on days when the contest is not pretty. But when it comes to his own team, Bielsa has pointed out time and again that good football and consistent results rely on his squad staying at their peak, maintaining maximum output and forcing the opposition to crack, individually and collectively.

Sunday found them short of those levels, even if Bamford broke the door down in the end.