Marcelo Bielsa on Leeds United's fighting spirit, Middlesbrough's performance and his injured players

It was their third consecutive win by that scoreline, but not quite as comfortable as their triumph over Reading on Saturday.

Boro made a fight of it by raising their performance levels, in Bielsa's estimation, and his Leeds side had to respond in kind.

"The team fought a lot, very aggressive, they made a lot of effort, when it was necessary the whole team defended," said Bielsa.

"We attacked well, better in the first half than in the second half, with more chances in the first half.

"The match was very tough, a lot of fight in the match, I think Middlesbrough were above their level regarding the previous matches they've played.

"Today the team protected the result a lot, we played well in different moments of the match, the team didn't lose calm, they made few faults, in general we managed well all the different situations in the match.

"Maybe in some moments in the second half Middlesbrough created some danger for us but in general we had three times more chances than them."

If Leeds had lost focus or failed to match Boro's intensity, the result could have been different, Bielsa admitted.

"Today was a match that if we lost a little bit of focus or didn't keep the intensity or effort, maybe we could have risked the result," he added.

Leeds were without defensive midfielder Kalvin Phillips, who failed a fitness test on the injury sustained in Saturday's game and Bielsa has a new injury concern over striker Jean-Kevin Augustin, who won't be fit for Saturday's game. Phillips remains a possibility.

"[Phillips] had an evaluation in the morning and he wasn't 100 per cent to play," said the head coach.

"Yesterday we thought he was going to play and today it wasn't possible.

"Augustin has a muscular problem in his hamstring.

"[Phillips will] probably be available but I don't want to make the same mistake as yesterday when I thought he was going to play."