Saiz shines behind Marseille-esque zonal press: How Leeds overwhelmed Stoke in Bielsa debut

Marcelo Bielsa kicked off his career at Leeds United in some style with a 3-1 win over Stoke City on Sunday.

With so much talk about how Bielsa has influenced the modern game, as well as how he is going to translate his intense style of play onto a Championship side, the Chilean coach will be delighted to have seen the Leeds United players respond so positively on the pitch.

Here is what we learned from Bielsa’s first game in English football.

The Zonal Press

In a very similar fashion to his 2014/15 Marseille side, Bielsa has Leeds playing a zonal pressing style when defending. What looks like the chaos of a team chasing the ball down all over the pitch is actually a very carefully planned tactic from Bielsa – each player has a specific zone to press the ball and it all starts from the player who loses the ball.

Rather than the famed 3-3-3-1 formation that he has used so many times down the years, Bielsa also showed real flexibility by deploying Leeds in a 4-4-1-1 off the ball and then quickly committing midfielders forward when they regained possession.

The Leeds players kept this relentless, high energy tactic up for nearly the whole game to great effect, snuffing out almost every period of possession that Stoke tried to muster.  Whether they can maintain that same level throughout a long Championship season remains to be seen, but the early signs are very good.

Samuel Saiz Alonso – the calm among the chaos

Samuel Saiz scored an impressive 9 goals in 30 games last season after joining Leeds from Huesca in July 2017.

However, he still tends to come in for a little stick due to his lightweight frame and tendency to go down under soft challenges.

But, on today’s evidence at least, he looks like he will thrive under Bielsa. While the rest of the Leeds team were working tirelessly, Saiz was creeping around the midfield, looking for any spaces he could find to hurt the Stoke back-line.

And hurt them he did.  He provided the assist for Mateusz Klich’s 15th-minute opener and looked a creative threat all game.  Had his Leeds teammates been a little more clinical in front of goal, Saiz may have walked away with more than one assist today – should he repeat performances like this throughout the season then he will certainly add to that tally.

Kemar Roofe took the man of the match award on Sunday, but this little Spaniard certainly caught the eye as well.

Leeds have real character

After such a positive first half, many teams could have regressed after conceding an early second-half penalty, tucked away by new Stoke signing, Benik Afobe.

However, they responded brilliantly by gaining their composure and responding with a quick goal from a corner.

That goal put them 3-1 up and, apart from some pressure in the last 15 minutes as Stoke desperately chased a goal, they never looked like relinquishing control of the game.

Ask any Leeds fan and they will tell you that they have a habit of making things hard for themselves – not here though, the Yorkshire club will hope that is a theme that remains throughout the season.

Set pieces reminiscent of Gareth Southgate’s England

In the same way England did to great effect in the World Cup this summer, Leeds caused havoc from their set pieces.

Just as the delivery is about to come in, the Leeds attackers break off in all directions and make runs in every area of the box. Again, though, what looks like chaos is actually carefully planned as they all know where their target is.

Leeds were finally rewarded for their set-piece prowess in the 57th minute when a great delivery from Barry Douglas was met by a thundering header from Liam Cooper to make it 3-1 and seal the victory.

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