Phil Hay's Verdict: Swansea City 2 Leeds United 2 - Whites land early leading role despite being taken out of comfort zone

So said Paul Warne after Rotherham United’s defeat at Elland Road on Saturday and Leeds United can see the warning behind his joke after a gruelling night in Wales.

Two weeks spent riding roughshod over Championship opponents has promised the world from Marcelo Bielsa, but a 2-2 draw at Swansea City explained why Warne preached caution and why Bielsa has shied away from predicting how this season will go.

Too early and too premature for someone as old in years as he.

Warne, the young Rotherham boss, is fairly new to management, but even he could see that Leeds’ perfect start to the season meant only so much when the campaign was two weeks’ old.

A few days on Leeds were reminded of how the Championship works, pushed hard last night and almost to breaking point by a Swansea team who gave up a point as precious as any of the nine earned by United previously.

Bielsa spent his earliest days on the touchline looking at a picture of precision and control in front of him, but the view became uncomfortable at Liberty Stadium as his resources grew stretched.

A pre-match injury to Liam Cooper left behind a defence without a recognised centre-back in it – a priority now, surely, as the loan window prepares to close – and the smell of vulnerability was evident as Swansea ran the first half and parts of the second.

Oli McBurnie, a player who Bielsa’s predecessor, Paul Heckingbottom, had planned to take to Elland Road this summer, drew first blood in the 24th minute with a strike that had been coming from the off.

Bielsa was proactive, immediately dispensing with an off-the-pace Kalvin Phillips, and an equaliser from Kemar Roofe five minutes before half-time did not dissuade Bielsa from hooking Gjanni Alioski at the interval.

That second change had barely been felt when McBurnie scored again, rising on 51 minutes to head in a cross from Martin Olsson as defenders around him stood stationary.

Leeds fought on, grasping for another equaliser, and just as Bielsa prepared to taste defeat for the first time Pablo Hernandez stepped up against his former club to stick away a cut-back from Patrick Bamford and force a draw with 10 minutes left.

Even on a evening of so many problems, Bielsa’s players had the wit to do that.

United’s head coach has ticked through the past fortnight without blinking, leaning on the same tactics and the same unchanged team in the Championship. There was no need for Swansea to second-guess either, so telegraphed are Bielsa’s intentions, but no-one on either side anticipated the loss of Cooper to a pulled hamstring in the warm-up.

Questions have been raised of Bielsa about the shallow pool of centre-backs at Elland Road and Cooper’s injury pressed the case further.

Pontus Jansson was already absent, suffering from a back problem sustained over the weekend, and Bielsa’s only move was to relocate Luke Ayling – a player who his head coach said last week could “solve every problem” – and start Jamie Shackleton at right-back.

Whether consciously or not, Leeds were knocked out of their rhythm and out of their comfort zone.

Swansea’s talented front three worked the wings at the tempo that Bielsa likes to see and Phillips found his way into referee Andy Davies’ book after 15 minutes, halting an attack with a touchline trip on Bersant Celina.

The attempts to stretch Bielsa’s defence amounted to little more than the odd anxious clearance at first, but the balance of the match, entirely in Swansea’s favour for half-an-hour, threatened a concession before long.

It came in the 24th minute and with the run of play.

Leeds had ventured deep into Swansea half, but were exposed when Phillips lost possession 20 yards out.

Barrie McKay drew Gaetano Berardi before slipping a crossfield pass to Celina, inviting a shot that Celina resisted. Instead an inside ball allowed McBurnie to bring the bounce under his control and stab a finish under Peacock-Farrell’s body.

Bielsa, by then, had seen enough of Phillips and unceremoniously ended his 100th club appearance within minutes, doubtless wary of a second yellow card. Lewis Baker, his replacement, took up an attacking position, but was himself cautioned before the interval, for hacking down Leroy Fer.

It left Mateusz Klich to fill the defensive midfield role that Phillips had taken on capably in United’s previous league games. In the space of 72 hours United’s head coach had gone from the most settled of line-ups to a situation where he was scratching his head, expecting more. Swansea smelled anxiety and tried to punish it. Celina slashed at a shot after Shackleton lost the ball and invited him to break from halfway and Leeds did not knock on City’s door until the 36th minute. When they did, Berardi should have done better from a position 10 yards from goal than head a Barry Douglas cross high and over.

There was little, if anything, that fell into place.

But five minutes before half-time Swansea dropped their guard and Shackleton got inside, sprinting down the right wing and drilling over a low cross that pinned goalkeeper Erwin Mulder to his goalline.

Roofe was waiting a few yards out, ready to finish the easiest of the four goals he has scored this season. Bielsa had spent the rest of the first half wondering where that incisiveness had gone.

Those thoughts prodded the Argentinian into replacing Alioski with Jack Harrison at the break, but Swansea began pressing Leeds back quickly and duly scored for a second time when McBurnie was left unmarked to guide a pin-point header over Peacock-Farrell, from Olsson’s cross on the left.

McBurnie would have completed a hat-trick had Peacock-Farrell not gloved another effort from him wide and Bielsa eventually played the only card left to him, sending on Bamford with 25 minutes to play.

There was no deviation from his system and no desperate plunge towards a plan B; a captain ready to go down with his ship, in the expectation that Leeds would master these tactics and come again.

They came again 10 minutes from the end, through a fine piece of play from Bamford, spinning Mike van der Hoorn wide on the left and bursting forward before picking out Hernandez – the midfielder Swansea first brought to England in 2012 – with a pass that the Spaniard dispatched first time.

Even then a late save from Peacock-Farrell, denying Celina with his legs, was needed to keep Swansea at bay.

A point gained, and no arguing with it.