Marcelo Bielsa laments loss of midfielders and big miss against Manchester United - YEP 20/2/22

Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa lamented the absence of Kalvin Phillips and the loss to injury of Robin Koch after defeat to Manchester United.

By Graham Smyth

Despite going in at the break 2-0 down and distinctly second best, Bielsa's men roared out of the tunnel for the second half and took the game to their visitors. Goals from Rodrigo and Raphinha levelled the game, but Manchester United exploited space in the midfield to score twice more and take the points back across the Pennines.

Bielsa saw the fight his team will need to show if they're to stave off relegation this season, but admits they'll need more than that.

"To not fight would be a sign that is worrying," he said.

"To fight is a starting point, but it’s not the only thing. The fight is an element of the game and you know the game has numerous components. The fight indicates commitment that’s indispensable to construct a performance, but there are other elements of the game that complete this.

"The effort that the team made, you can value it, but the relationship between what you produce and what you get is enormous in football."

The disappointing manner in which Leeds conceded the goals that condemned them to a second successive defeat was not down to individual defensive frailties, Bielsa said, but his side's struggle to win the ball back in midfield.

With Phillips still recovering from hamstring surgery Koch played in defensive midfield, only to leave the game with what appeared to be a concussion after he was flattened by Scott McTominay. Bielsa then pushed Pascal Struijk into that role but then needed to use him as a centre-half again in the second half as Leeds went for broke to try and get back into the game.

Bielsa, who explained that Koch actually went off due to a cut on his head, highlighted the absence of Phillips, Koch and Struijk in front of the back line as an issue but admitted there are other problems given the 50 goals they've conceded this season.

"Evidently we’ve conceded a lot of goals," he said.

"The amount of goals conceded is not linked to the individualities defensively. It’s difficult for us to prevent the opponent from creating danger. And to form a more compact block is not simple. The fundamental problems are in the recovery of the ball in the middle of the pitch, and so we had to be without Phillips, who is a defensive midfielder, after, without Koch, who is another defensive midfielder, and after, without Pascal, who is another defensive midfielder. In the second half we had to put Pascal back in the defensive line and, due to the absence of three players who can do that function, the composition of the midfield doesn’t have a defensive profile, and that had an influence on the defensive behaviour of the team today. That also isn't an explanation as we have conceded 50 goals in the league, and i’m just commenting about the game today. "

Having got back into the game so swiftly after the break, Leeds could have gone ahead had Daniel James connected with a diving header in the area but instead the visitors went down the pitch to grab their third goal.

Manchester United's clinical finishing was a major differential for Bielsa.

"The game didn’t become chaotic from my point of view," he said.

"We stopped being in charge of the game, and the product of not being in charge of the game was that we lost the dominance of the ball. In the moment that the team was recomposing itself, we missed a very clear chance to score to make it 3-2. In the response of that play, they went down the other end and scored. Either way, the general transmit of the game, they missed very few chances, but they were very efficient and we were less efficient, and the difference comes through that. We had seven or eight chances to score a goal, just like the opponent, but they scored in a higher proportion, us not in the same proportion."

The Whites head coach was asked why he decided to drop Raphinha to the bench ahead of the game but elected not to offer insight into the reasons for his thinking. The Brazilian came off the bench for the second half and was influential, scoring the equaliser and causing problems on the right flank.

"I chose to form the attack with other players," said Bielsa.

"They are decisions and changes that, throughout the season, can happen."