Why Leeds United need Kalvin Phillips and the effect his absence had versus Brighton.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m certain you will have not only heard of but will have an opinion on the football of Leeds United under Marcelo Bielsa. Whether you love or hate the high risk, fast paced and non stop attack identity of Leeds, that was not the team that turned up on Saturday.
An attack can be broken down into three stages: gaining control of possession, building the attack and creating the opportunity. Every team build their attacks in different ways using different interpretations on what the best way of dealing with the ball in each of the three sections. Leeds’ solution is simple in concept yet difficult in execution. They aim to stretch an opposition vertically before using a series of short, vertical passes at a high tempo to get between the defensive and midfield line of the opposition creating confusion and disorganizing the oppositions defense then using full backs plus midfielders to fill the created spaces and create numerical superiorities. The defensive midfielder who is usually Kalvin Phillips is integral to this, receiving the ball the players around him before turning to pass towards one of the midfielders vertically in front of him. Here are some examples from the Leeds Vs Everton game and the Sheffield United Vs Leeds game.
Tap or click the link to see the Video
https://player.vimeo.com/video/501589077
Why is this relevant? From this we can see how important this position is to the rest of the team and two very clear examples of how Leeds struggle when this role isn’t as efficient. In the games against both Chelsea and West Ham Phillips was man marked by Kante and Benrahma respectively and his influence in the team was minimized and Leeds lost both of these games as a result. Another example is the FA Cup loss vs Crawley. At half time Leeds handed a debut to youngster Jack Jenkins in this position and his inexperience was clear to see, Leeds possession dropped from 75% to 67% in these halves and Leeds had 44% of their attacks deemed as dangerous compared to 51% in the first half. All three of these games should reinforce the importance of this position when Leeds are on the front foot.
This was mirrored again on Saturday as no matter how hard they tried they could not find a way to beat the midfield of Brighton and complete any more than the first phase of the attack and no stat shows this more than the fact Patrick Bamford had only four touches in the entire first half. In my opinion there are two reasons for this: firstly once Brighton had scored they had no need to press Leeds meaning no matter how much possession Leeds had they weren't stretching the opposition and therefore had a constant battle for space on the pitch on top of this Brighton were clearly prepared to deal with Leeds’ tactics as at times setting up in a 5–4–1 to prevent Leeds players being unmarked between the lines. Secondly Leeds replacement midfielder Pascal Struijk was not able to progress the ball forwards at the same rate as the usual Phillips does. We can see this in the fact that Leeds usually attempt 106 long passes per game but attempted 133 at the weekend trying to find unorthodox ways of progressing the ball behind the midfield because the Brighton midfield often had time to organize themselves before Leeds were on the attack. Even more frequently Struijk was often not in the correct position to be available to the defenders meaning that they had to wait and let the opposition structure themselves or try progress the ball themselves with a low success rate creating a lose- lose situation.These struggles can be seen in the video clip below. Leeds’ two attacking midfielders of Klich and Rodrigo were also poor in finding space leading to a good hour of uninspiring and uncharacteristic football from the West Yorkshire side.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/501586821
Bielsa did his best to solve this by making one of the most complex substitutions of the season which would see 5 positions filled with different players compared to before the substitution. This saw Klich drop into defensive midfield as a more vertical, progressive option. Leeds attacking output did increase after this point but Brighton’s ability to sit deeper without having to push themselves and become unorganized meant it was just too difficult for Leeds to break them down and find the equalizer in a game that overall left fans frustrated at Leeds inefficiency in-front with the ball.
