Marcelo Bielsa ponders changes for Middlesbrough after admitting Leeds United team selections have failed to work

A chance to move six points clear of the division went begging on Saturday as Norwich silenced a crowd of 36,000 at Elland Road, winning 3-1 to move above Leeds on goal difference with 16 matches of the season to play.

Daniel Farke’s side rose to the pressure of a highly-anticipated clash between the division’s first and second teams, taking advantage of moments of fortune and bad errors from United to establish a 2-0 lead at the interval and then dominate the second half.

Two deflected Mario Vrancic goals and one from Teemu Pukki wrapped the game up with 12 minutes to go and an injury-time header from substitute Patrick Bamford - a strike on his return from a knee injury - came too late to change the course of a sobering defeat.

Leeds and Norwich are locked together on 57 points but while Norwich are on a run of one defeat in 15 league matches, United have lost four of their last six and are now preparing for difficult trip to fifth-placed Middlesbrough this weekend.

Bielsa’s side were constrained by a series of poor individual performances - the Argentinian replaced Pablo Hernandez after 45 minutes with Leeds two goals adrift - but the 63-year-old blamed himself for failing to establish a more dangerous attacking line.

“We have difficulty scoring goals,” Bielsa said. “The fact is that we usually create a lot of chances and score few goals. We were strong before because we had a good defensive side but we have lost that now.

“I have to find the right combinations in order to find the right way to attack. As you can see, in the last games I haven’t made the right choice because many players played in the offensive positions and in spite of the different combinations we still have the same problem - we need many chances to score one goal.

“This is the responsibility of the head coach, not the players. It’s the same thing regarding the defensive strength that we’ve lost. In order to defend well we have to safely recovery of the ball and then make the link between defence and attack without risking any dangerous loss of it.

“In one segment of the Championship we recovered the ball well and could play out (from the back). But we’ve lost this feature and I think I’m deeply responsible for it.”

Bielsa will weigh up possible changes before the trip to Middlesbrough, who are back in the hunt for automatic promotion after a 3-2 win at West Bromwich Albion, and the early return of Bamford was an isolated boost for United’s head coach.

Bamford, a player who Leeds signed from Boro for £7m in the summer, suffered a second knee injury before Christmas having previously missed three months of the season with ligament damage and Bielsa initially planned to use him in an Under-23s game before welcoming him back into the first-team fold.

Bamford, though, made a surprise appearance on the bench on Saturday and scored with a header during added time having hit the crossbar moments earlier. The striker came off the bench in the 63rd minute with Leeds chasing a 2-0 deficit.

Bielsa said: “When a number nine scores it’s a positive thing but it was very hard for any player to play well in the second half.”