Stoke City 2 Leeds United 1: Attacking play not good enough, admits Marcelo Bielsa

Marcelo Bielsa criticised the quality of Leeds United's attacking play but brushed off more questions about '˜Spygate' after Stoke City inflicted his side's third defeat in four league games.
Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa.Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa.
Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa.

Bielsa claimed Leeds’ creativity had cost them in a 2-1 defeat at the Bet365 Stadium where second-half goals from Sam Clucas and Joe Allen earned Stoke a first victory under new manager Nathan Jones.

Leeds were looking to bring a positive end to an intense week dominated by the furore over Bielsa dispatching a scout to watch Derby County train before United’s previous match but a 95th-minute strike from Gjanni Alioski came too late to deny Stoke their win.

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Pontus Jansson was sent off for a second yellow card in the 76th-minute, incurring a ban which will rule him out of next weekend’s trip to Rotherham United.

Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa.Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa.
Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa.

Leeds’ advantage at the top of the Championship has been cut to a single point and their impressive 2-0 victory over Derby last Friday has come in the thick of losses to Hull City, Nottingham Forest and now Stoke.

Bielsa refused to play down the form, saying: “Every time the team doesn't win I'm worried.

“It was a game that we could have won. That was reachable. We had the ball, we arrived easily in the last part of the pitch but in spite of this we couldn’t arrive in the box enough.

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“If you have the ball and you can't arrive to the last part of the pitch, you can't have chances to score. We were calm and we weren’t afraid of the offensive aspects of the opponent but we didn't have a solution.”

Leeds were denied by a brilliant save from England international Jack Butland while Stoke were 1-0 ahead, a one-handed parry which kept out a header from Luke Ayling, and replays suggested Jansson had been harshly booked for a second time for a tangle with Benik Afobe.

Bielsa said: “We can’t say we win or lose because of the referee.

“I could tell you that he was excessively severe or not but the referees don’t decide the final result of the game. We had all the doors open to win this game, even when we played 10 versus 11.”

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During an attempt to address the spying saga surrounding him earlier this week, Bielsa admitted to having watched training sessions of every Championship club this season.

The exposure of that tactic by Derby has forced him to abandon it but asked if the inability to watch Stoke beforehand had influenced the outcome, Bielsa said: “No. The description I just gave is enough.

“We can’t say we ignored the features of the opponent. We just didn’t take advantage of the possibilities we had.”

Jones, who took charge of Stoke last week after the sacking of Gary Rowett, revealed that his switch to a three-man defence and a system with wing-backs today had been an attempt to surprise Bielsa.

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Bielsa revealed on Wednesday how he had analysed all of the games handled by Jones in his previous job at Luton Town this season with a view to predicting how Stoke would play.

“It (Bielsa’s attention to detail) has been well publicised,” said Jones, who regularly used four at the back at Luton. “He’s well drilled on what our usual formation is so we thought we may have to give him a surprise.

“With the threats they’ve got, we needed to be tactically right at it and we were.”