Leeds United are finding it hard to control teams who attack them on the wings - The Athletic 17/8/22

By Phil Hay

The transfer window closes in two weeks and Jesse Marsch can be sure that every press conference he holds between now and then will drag him onto the subject of strikers, unless Leeds United sign one in the meantime.

That topic came at him after Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Southampton and a straw poll in Leeds would find that another forward is what most people crave. That debate was bubbling before the weekend and a first-half injury to Patrick Bamford at St Mary’s brought it to the fore again.

Bamford’s muscular strain and the chopping and changing up front was not, though, the reason Marsch was forced to take a point from a game Leeds ought to have won. However adequate his attacking resources are, the growth of his team will depend as much on their structure protecting them as effectively as it needs to. A second win of the season was in Marsch’s hands until assurance was lost defensively.

Leeds, in spells, have played well in their first two Premier League matches, applying Marsch’s ideas with some confidence. When he said over the weekend that feeling disappointed with a 2-2 scoreline at Southampton was “progress” for his squad, it was fair to point out that in deserving wins from both of their opening fixtures, they have broken out of the rut they were in last season, a time when Leeds were all too easy to outplay. In spite of Bamford dropping out, their expected goals figure of 2.73 is near the top end of the Premier League’s numbers so far, a sign of tactics translating into chances.

Marsch took some blame on the south coast for failing to make substitutions while Leeds were 2-0 up, or more specifically when changes made by Ralph Hasenhuttl breathed sudden life into Southampton. There was an attempt by Marsch to shift to five at the back after Southampton’s first goal but no fresh blood appeared from the bench until the match was level, at which stage Southampton began to look like edging it. “This is the hardest part for me of being a manager,” Marsch said, accepting the tweaks he made latterly could, and probably should, have come sooner.

There was, all the same, more to Southampton’s fightback than tired legs and minds. The closing stages of Saturday’s match shone a light on Leeds’ setup defensively and where they are most open to attacks. The trend of teams cutting through them out wide, hitting the flanks and finding Leeds compromised, was there again as Hasenhuttl went for broke and loaded his team with attacking players. The wings have rapidly become the areas which Marsch’s side find most difficult to control.

🤩 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗸'𝘀 𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀, 𝗥𝗼𝗱𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗼'𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗵!
Watch All The Angles of our first goal yesterday with @HisenseUK pic.twitter.com/lfQ6bbW1Bb

— Leeds United (@LUFC) August 14, 2022

That weakness stands to reason because by asking his full-backs to push on but using a narrow line of three in behind his centre-forward, Marsch’s setup does not provide ample amounts of cover out wide. One of the upsides of the system is that a strong presence in central areas allows Leeds to attack very quickly and directly in transition, something Bamford says he likes, and it is not that Leeds have no width at all, as Jack Harrison’s cross for Rodrigo’s second goal (see above) on Saturday demonstrated. But it is unlike the system Marsch inherited, in which full-backs and out-and-out wingers worked in tandem on each side of the field.

Pre-season indicated that the space Leeds tended to leave behind their widest defenders would present opportunities to the opposition and the first fortnight of the season has told the same story. The positioning of Marsch’s full-backs was more conservative at St Mary’s than it was against Wolverhampton Wanderers on weekend one — the next two images of Leeds’ average positions (Wolves first, Southampton second) show a difference in how far forward they generally strayed — but Southampton’s first goal demonstrated better than any so far what happens when Leeds switch off on the flanks.

Leeds’ average positions vs Wolves

Leeds’ average positions vs Southampton

With hindsight, Marsch will look at that 72nd-minute concession as an attack that should have been dealt with long before it caught Leeds on the hop. The chance was created by Adam Armstrong and finished by Joe Aribo but Armstrong’s surge down the left was avoidable. At the moment where the forward first received the ball, Leeds had him boxed in by three players near the touchline (next image).

He was so tightly marked that Rasmus Kristensen was under no pressure to commit to the counter-press as fully as he did, even though Marsch drills his players to hunt in packs.

Kristensen, a £10million ($12m) signing from RB Salzburg this summer, has had a challenging introduction to the Premier League, not instantly up to speed.

His role will demand plenty of him this season and Marsch challenges his full-backs to be as active in the opposition’s half as they are in their own, as seen in Kristensen’s touch map against Wolves (below). The job is a mix of defensive duties and providing overlaps at the other end of the field.

At 2-0 down, Southampton got change out of Kristensen on Saturday, just when they needed something to happen. Armstrong’s step around him and a deft one-two opened up the left wing, putting Leeds on the back foot.

Although Leeds had defenders on hand, Robin Koch was drawn into a sliding tackle and with him out of the game, Diego Llorente and Pascal Struijk, Marsch’s left-back, had no choice but to drift across the pitch.

The movement was such that Aribo popped up completely unmarked near the penalty spot, presented with a chance that was begging to be scored. The absence of a full-back on one side of the pitch led to the absence of a full-back on the other, and Aribo took his opportunity at the second attempt, shooting beyond a crowded goal line.

Marsch pointed out afterwards that the absence of immediate substitutions did not mean his plan had not changed at all. With Southampton back in the game, he moved to a back five to “cut down (Southampton’s) ability to attack us in the half lane”, or the half-spaces as they are commonly referred to.

In helping to read the half-spaces — the two vertical rectangles between the wings and the central run of the pitch — Marsch has the advantage of an assistant, Rene Maric, who virtually wrote the book on them, for The Athletic last year and for analytical website Spielverlagerung in 2014. Those parts of the field fascinate coaches because of the way they can be used to unsettle defences.

Leeds will be without a recognised full-back until Junior Firpo is fit again in a couple of weeks and to facilitate Marsch’s tactical switch, Harrison dropped in as a left wing-back, with Stuijk moving into a more central berth. There was no denying that Southampton’s equaliser on 81 minutes owed much to a killer pass from Sekou Mara, brilliantly weighted and played with an element of disguise, but again, Leeds were not able to cope with the overlapping run of Kyle Walker-Peters out wide. Harrison lost a yard on him, Walker-Peters timed his run perfectly and Illan Meslier had little chance of closing the angles before Walker-Peters fired in at the far post.

Use of the half-spaces and gaps out wide also gave Wolves their route to goal at Elland Road on the first day of the season.

Scored after six minutes during Leeds’ 2-1 win, part of the blame lay with Kristensen who was brushed off a bouncing ball easily by Pedro Neto. But from the outset, Wolves sought to test Marsch’s team with balls to the flanks, a deliberate ploy.

Neto winning his duel with Kristensen allowed him to switch possession from half-space to half-space, picking out Hwang Hee-chan. Struijk was caught up field, Hwang stood unopposed and his header down let Daniel Podence beat Meslier with a bouncing shot.

The concessions give Marsch creases to iron out, after what he would class as an encouraging start to the term. Leeds, to a large extent, have functioned positively, especially going forward — top 10 for shots on goal, top seven for shots on target, top three for big chances created, top two for opportunities at set pieces — but they are also a unit who, according to Opta, have given up more chances than all but three teams: Southampton, Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest. One trend is helping Marsch. A continuation of the other would serve to hamper him.

“For me, it’s always in my mind to be glass-half-full but the group is making progress,” Marsch said on Saturday and the best of their performance at Southampton, the first hour in which they were measured, patient and performed with the good sense of a team away from home, gave them the guise of a side who are growing in confidence through practice and repetition.

But opposition analysts will already be looking at where and how Leeds can be hurt and where the chinks in the armour lie.

Whatever the benefit of an extra forward in the camp, signing one in the remainder of the window is not the only way Leeds can arm themselves better.