Garry Monk got one over his former team as Birmingham City travelled to Elland Road and went home with all three points. This also happens to be the first win of the season in the Championship for Monk and the fact that it came against the league leaders Leeds United should make it a day to savour for the Blues faithful.
Marcelo Bielsa’s men weren’t at it from the beginning, and they were not able to deal with Birmingham’s high press up the pitch. Like in the Swansea City game, Kalvin Phillips was substituted around the half-hour mark. The manager tried to take the blame on himself for some poor performance of his players.
The manager said after the defeat,”The proposal I chose for this game at the beginning was not the right one. We could not make the link between defence and attack because [Kalvin] Phillips could not receive the ball. Phillips had to assume the consequences for the mistake I made. When I corrected the mistake, the rival had already scored two goals. It is a high price to pay for a tactical mistake.”
The manager clearly tried to protect his players and the Argentine also downplayed Bailey Peacock Farrell’s error in the first goal. Bielsa also added further,”We weren’t fluid for the first 30 minutes and we looked tired.”
With the squad so razor thin in options, the manager has had to literally go in with the same team in almost all the Championship games. On top of that, an injury crisis has made matters worse for the current first eleven players as Bielsa doesn’t have many options to rotate them and give them a breather.
The defeat against Birmingham was largely down to the poor performance of the midfielders. Samuel Saiz who has been exceptional so far was off the boil in this game and along with him, Mateusz Klich was also found wanting. The Blues seemed more prepared to run down the Whites instead of the other way round and as Bielsa mentioned, the players looked tired. United just made two permanent signings in the summer and 4 loan deals. Out of the four loan players, one is a backup goalkeeper (Jamal Blackman) and other is yet to recover from his injury (Izzy Brown).
So its clear that the Whites need to add reinforcement to their team in the January transfer window. Last season, somewhere around this time only under Thomas Christiansen, Leeds United started to fall down the table and the slump never stopped. Hopefully, from United’s point of view, they would have learnt the lesson from the last season.
We already did a story on how over-reliance on youngsters from so early on in the season showcases that the team is light regarding depth in the squad. Another inactive transfer window in January could put the Whites away from the title race and therefore, its imperative for Bielsa to identify his targets now and go after them next year.
