Leeds United 0-1 Swansea City: What To Say
Criticisms came easily to mind after this game because last season they existed as fears. Fears that, ultimately, proved as inevitable as the spectre in the cellar of the abandoned house, as soon as you opened the door, when it came out roaring and shrieking and on its way to Chelsea.
A few minutes after Swansea City, making the second chance of their game against Leeds United in the 90th minute, scored it and won, Marcelo Bielsa sat down for the post-match press conference.
His counterpart at Swansea, Steve Cooper, was presumably still wiping his brow and catching his breath, after gnashing his gums at the travelling fans and slapping the swan on his chest by way of celebrating the result. Leeds fans, certainly, were still volubly livid outside the stadium, beginning their journeys home in a state of familiar stunned disappointment.
He couldn't say, Bielsa said, if there were ways the game could have been different, or if, given a replay, he'd "do things in a different way." After this defeat, he said, "We need something to criticise, but I honestly don't know what to say."
Those fans shuffling along Lowfields Road could have suggested plenty of things for Bielsa to criticise. Criticisms came easily to mind after this game because, before they became criticisms, last season they existed for a long time as fears. Fears that, ultimately, proved as inevitable as the spectre in the cellar of the abandoned house, as soon as you opened the door, when it came out roaring and shrieking and on its way to Chelsea.
After the exhilarating start last season fans began to worry: that the team's inefficiency in front of goal would be permanent and costly; that calm possession would leave Leeds vulnerable to sucker punches if the players didn't capitalise on their advantages; that naive defending would cause defeats unless the goalkeeper and centre-halves got a grip. It was a perfect storm that, as it gathered above Elland Road, cloud by cloud, felt like a climate.
Moving forwards through the team against Swansea, the defence had a firm grip, with Swansea's most dangerous players, Yan Dhanda and Borja Baston, substituted together on the hour after getting nothing out of Kalvin Phillips and Liam Cooper, who were both superb. Phillips was the platform for United's dominance in midfield, outpossessing and outpassing Swansea. That created the chances for Leeds to score, thirteen of them according to the post-match stats, after eleven against Nottingham Forest and eight against Brentford; 32 chances in three home games, six of them classified by the statisticians as 'big', but only two goals scored. And none from the two big chances in this game.