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da bet7： This article is part of Football FanCast’s Off the Bench series, which places in-game managerial decisions and squad selections under FFC’s microscope.
Possession doesn’t win you games of football. That is the reality of the game and Leeds found that out the hard way on Saturday.
Try as they might, they failed to get over the line and despite having north of 60% of the ball, drew with Derby.
It was a setback but one that was rather typical of a Marcelo Bielsa side who have only won once in five attempts at home this season.
Snapshot
Leeds were dominant and should have been home and hosed before Derby even had a chance to take a point from the game.
Patrick Bamford hit the post and Mateusz Klich also missed a penalty but a crucial second-half substitution didn’t help either.
Pablo Hernandez headed off with just over 15 minutes to go and on in his place came Barry Douglas.
Off the bench
A number of Bielsa’s calls at the weekend were questionable, none more so than the decision to include Jack Harrison over Helder Costa who hasn’t scored since the opening weekend.
But one that played out during the match was also somewhat bewildering. With Hernandez unable to continue, instead of bringing on a more attacking player, Bielsa opted for a defender.
That allowed Gjanni Alioski to push on further up the pitch but with that change being utilised, a more defensive look was preferred on the left-hand side.
The substitution occurred on 74 minutes which happened after Klich’s missed spot-kick. Rather than opting for someone like Tyler Roberts to operate out wide, who might have had a say in scoring a second, he went with an option that left them vulnerable.
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Douglas’ introduction ultimately invited pressure on Leeds who hadn’t had to do much defending until that moment.
But Derby fought back and got at the Whites as they started to let up the attacking nature they’d shown before.
When the left-back was on the pitch, the Rams had three of their five shots as they capitalised on the fact Bielsa was seemingly happy at 1-0.
Douglas didn’t particularly perform too badly, making one tackle and an interception in 16 minutes but it was the wrong decision when Leeds needed to go in for the kill.