Marcelo Bielsa's defensive worries grow as Leeds United wait on Pontus Jansson with Kiko Casilla decision looming

United are hopeful that a knee injury suffered by Jansson is not serious and could move to challenge a dismissal which will see Casilla hit with a one-match ban, ruling him out of their next game at home to Millwall on March 30.

The late loss of Casilla during Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Sheffield United, at a time when Bielsa had already used three substitutes, forced Jansson to play in goal for the remainder of injury-time but the defender left Elland Road with concerns about his condition after damaging a knee earlier in the game.

Bielsa had no replacements remaining at that stage either and Jansson remained on the field to the end of the match. His injury, however, prompted Bielsa to move him up front prior to Casilla’s dismissal with Jansson limping heavily and struggling to cover Sheffield United’s forward line.

Bielsa was unaware of the full extent of Jansson’s problem at full-time but the Sweden international has been a mainstay in his defence for most of the season and turned in a strong performance on Saturday despite the scoreline.

Jansson is due to travel away with Sweden during the international break for European Championship qualifiers against Romania and Norway, returning to Leeds next week for the English run-in.

Bielsa has Gaetano Berardi in reserve after the Swiss defender’s recent return from a torn hamstring, however, and the club have two weeks to lick their wounds from a painful derby loss.

Casilla, meanwhile, has been an impressive figure since his arrival from Real Madrid in January and he went into Saturday’s game on a run of three straight clean sheets.

Sharp drew him into a foul in the first minute of injury-time after breaking away from Bielsa’s backline and attempting to round the Spaniard.

Bielsa has avoided commenting about refereeing decisions for most of the season but insisted Casilla had been harshly treated by referee David Coote.

“Usually I don't express an opinion on the behaviour of the referees but I think this action should have been judged by taking into account the help Kiko had around him,” Bielsa said.

“For a player to get a red card means that he's the only one who can solve the problem. We'll see if he was the last one or not.”

Leeds created 17 shots on goal in wet and difficult conditions at Elland Road but failed to steer one on target. Tyler Roberts came closest to scoring before Chris Basham’s 71st-minute winner when his strike from inside the box came back off a post.

“Our first half-hour was very good,” Bielsa said. “We conceded the last 10 minutes of the first half and we had less quality in the second half but we dominated and we had the feeling that we were dangerous.

“The chances we had to score were built by ourselves without luck or receiving help from the opponent. We had three times more chances to score than the opponent but they scored the goal.”