Marcelo Bielsa's simple explanation for Leeds United's imposing and improved defensive wall

Winter is coming and Leeds United have formed a more imposing, more impenetrable wall between their goal and opposition teams than the one they put up last season.
Gjanni Alioski helping to keep yet another clean sheet for Leeds United at Sheffield Wednesday (Pic: Getty)Gjanni Alioski helping to keep yet another clean sheet for Leeds United at Sheffield Wednesday (Pic: Getty)
Gjanni Alioski helping to keep yet another clean sheet for Leeds United at Sheffield Wednesday (Pic: Getty)

In Marcelo Bielsa’s inaugural campaign as Whites head coach, 1.09 goals were conceded per game in the Championship.

After 15 games of the current season, Kiko Casilla has had to pick the ball out of his net just eight times It’s the best defensive record in England.

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Much has been written and said about the individuals who have contributed to the solidity at the back.

Loan signing Ben White’s duck-to-water adaptation to life in the Championship has earned constant praise. Liam Cooper’s dominance has caught the eye, White sharing credit for his own form with the club captain and the on-field advice he gives his central defensive junior. Kalvin Phillips continues to look every inch a Premier League defensive midfielder in waiting, rarely troubled by attacking players, only Charlton’s Jonny Williams getting the better of him with any regularity in the season’s first batch of fixtures. And Casilla, often a spectator thanks to Leeds’ sheer dominance in most games, has proved reliable on the rare occasions he has been called upon, making key stops and fully deserving his nine clean sheets.

The control United exert, the time they spend on the ball and on the attack, the nous of seasoned veterans like Cooper, Stuart Dallas, Luke Ayling and the side’s collective discipline have all been highlighted in discussions about the defensive side of their game.

Bielsa puts it down to one thing however, one word in fact – experience.

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His Leeds players are feeling the benefit of mistakes they made last season. Bielsa feels that chastening experience will cement a lesson in a player’s mind more than the pre-emptive words of their coach.

The fact that, in football and particularly at a club with the profile and ambition of Leeds United, mistakes are punished and highlighted, might not make for a comfortable or enjoyable learning process, but it will teach a player not to repeat his error. Last season in crucial games there were mistakes, slips and miscommunications that proved costly for both United’s automatic promotion hopes and their chances of reaching the play-off final.

“The mistakes that allows the opponent to score, those mistakes have an effect that helps the player to improve,” the head coach said.

“You can say to one player don’t do this mistake, [but] this method is less effective than when you have a situation where a player makes a mistake and learns from it because it has a consequence.

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“The price that you pay when you make a mistake has a big value for developing as a player.”

Ideally, Bielsa would dearly love to protect his charges from ever having to make mistakes in the first place.

He speaks almost parentally about the squad, despite famously and intentionally not entering into close personal relationships with those playing under his management.

This week he offered the opinion that a better group of humans would be impossible to find than the Leeds United brotherhood.

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But, like a parent, he knows they must venture into the big bad world and make their own decisions, some of which will inevitably be mistakes, or they might not truly comprehend the valuable lessons to be learned.

“I always hope and wish that if I prevent a player from doing the mistake, without doing it before, he won’t do this mistake,” said the Argentine.

“But when I see that a player makes a mistake and how after he changes behaviour in the face of the error, I realise that when you make a mistake it is more important for the learning process of a player than if the manager prevents the mistake.”

Bielsa should, but won’t, take credit for the organisation and structure he has drilled into the players, the lightning quick transitions from attack to defence that have ensured the proverbial sheet has remained unsullied on so many occasions.

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In his opinion, the key to Leeds United’s formidable defensive performances this season is very simple.

“We make less mistakes than last season because we have learned from it.

“I could have answered this question just with one word, experience.”