Marcelo Bielsa makes Gjanni Alioski and Pascal Struijk predictions assessing if Leeds United's defence is missing Ben White

Leeds will face last season's star loanee White for the first time in today's Premier League clash against Brighton at Elland Road which United approach sat in 12th but with the second-worst defensive record in the division.

Leeds have shipped in 33 goals from their 17 games so far with only second-bottom West Brom having conceded more but a tally of 30 goals at the other end has Leeds sat in mid-table.

With centre-back White playing every single minute of every single league game last season, Leeds boasted the 2019-20 Championship's best defensive record with just 35 goals conceded in 46 games en route to promotion as champions.

United then made White their top target of the summer but Brighton refused to be budged and insisted the former Whites loanee was not for sale, despite Leeds offering up to £25m plus add ons.

Leeds instead signed German international defender Robin Koch from SC Freiburg and Spanish international centre-back Diego Llorente from Real Sociedad though both have suffered frustrations with injuries during the opening months of their careers at Leeds.

With skipper Liam Cooper also having been injured, there is, says Bielsa, a much bigger picture to United's defensive record than the absence of White.

Pushed on whether conceding 33 goals in 17 games showed that Leeds had missed White, Bielsa said: "No. This statistic that you are offering is a data point that has a lot of weight, a lot of data.

"I always try and link a data that has this much impact with the individual performance and the team's conduct and I would have to sit down and talk with you for 30 minutes to explain this in detail.

"What is concrete is that this problem exists and I haven't managed to resolve it.

"But you open a point of view to analyse and this point of view that the capacity of the players that are playing that we analyse, it doesn't give me a positive response and I tell you why.

"Ben White was replaced by Koch and Koch had a quick adaptation and a good adaptation to the Premier League.

"Then he was replaced by Ayling who has been one of the best players of the team so I can't think that is a lack of individuals that is the reason why we are not defending so well."

Asked whether he regretted the fact that Leeds were not able to sign White on a permanent deal and that Brighton would not sell, Bielsa said: "No, we did what was possible to try and acquire him and afterwards the club supplemented this by signing Koch and Llorente.

"After the absence of those players, Ayling has been replacing and Ayling who has stopped plaiyng as a full back has been replaced by (Stuart) Dallas.

"Dallas who has stopped playing as a left full back has been replaced by (Gjanni) Alioski.

"Of course we would have liked that Llorente and Koch were available at this time.

"But for me Ayling has been at the same level of White and Koch and Dallas has been at the same level of Ayling and Ali is going through a period of development in this position that for me will end up in him becoming a very good and reliable option at left back.

"You also have to consider that of course we have to adapt to the simultaneous absence of players like Koch, Llorente, (Kalvin) Phillips and Cooper and Pascal (Struijk) is going to become a very useful player in relation to the absence of Cooper and Phillips.

"You just have to look at Pascal's performance against Liverpool and Tottenham, and you see that he is a player that is going to enrich Leeds United and the same I have thought about Alioski.

"But then this stat that you gave us of conceding 33 goals is impossible for me to defend."

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/football/leeds-united/leeds-uniteds-predicted-line-brighton-clash-marcelo-bielsa-hand-defender-home-debut-3101757

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/football/leeds-united/marcelo-bielsa-leeds-uniteds-love-ben-white-and-brighton-warning-ahead-third-battle-graham-potter-3102164

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/football/leeds-united/yorkshire-evening-post-launch-leeds-united-only-digital-subscription-ahead-premier-league-campaign-2967964

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Thank you Laura Collins