It will be a case of mastermind versus apprentice, as Brendan Rodgers takes his Leicester City side to Elland Road to face Marcelo Bielsa for the first time in his managerial career.
There’s not many top managers in football that Brendan Rodgers is yet to face throughout his club career, after spending many years parading the European competitions with Liverpool, Celtic, and now Leicester City. The same argument could be made, that’s there’s not many managers more influential on the sport, than current Leeds United boss, Marcelo Bielsa.
The Argentinian is an anomaly. If you’re a football fan, devoted to understanding and enjoying the finer details of the sport, Bielsa is your cup of tea. In fact, his obsession with the sport his ludicrous. Recounting an anecdote, Bielsa once admitted to analysing a Championship club’s third choice goal-keeper – even though the first two choices were still fit, just in case. He did eight pages of analysis, purely on this goal-keeper – eight. I’d anticipate most clubs wouldn’t have more than two pages on their oppositions first choice goal-keeper, so this is quite the differential.
Rodgers has already acknowledged his appreciation for Bielsa, stating that he’s one of the few “pioneer’s” representing the sport, according to LeedsLive. Quite the accolade, especially from a well-respected manager such as the Northern Irishman. But, let’s look at the abundance of similarities between Leeds United under Bielsa, and Leicester City under Rodgers – as there’s a few to unpack.
Initially, both managers share the same ideologies on football. Rodgers is more a byproduct of following Bielsa’s style, but it can still be described as sharing the same beliefs on football. Free-flowing, attacking football, that actively seeks creativity and movement in the final third, but it’s structure is predetermined in training. So, the players understand their limitations, and try to play as expansively within those limits as possible.
For the managers to accomplish this, they both utilise the same formation – another shared interest. The Foxes and Leeds United utilise a starting 4-1-4-1 formation, although the way they’re implemented is quite different. With Rodgers, his 4-1-4-1 becomes a 4-3-3 in its attacking phases, as the wide-midfielders becoming wingers, and the single pivot defensive-midfielder is accompanied by the double pivot, to create a triangle in the centre.
There’s other nuances, the full-backs attack positioning is dependant on personnel, but so far this season, Timothy Castagne has played within the midfield line during attacking phases rather than the defensive line, with his fellow full-back, James Justin, occupying the latter. A fully-fit Ricardo Pereira would play similar to Castagne, but structurally speaking, they’re playing as full-backs rather than wide-midfielders.
With Bielsa, the 4-1-4-1 is non-existent in the attacking phase. In fact, it becomes an unorthodox 3-3-1-3 – a formation that Bielsa himself has famed throughout his varying jobs at club and international level. The sole defensive-midfielder (usually Kalvin Phillips) drops into the defensive line, accompanying both centre-backs. The full-backs become a part of the midfield line (which has a single central-midfielder inside of it), making it a second bank of three.
The other central-midfielder becomes the one in the formation, tasked with connecting play between the banks of three and the forward line. Lastly, in a similar structure to the Foxes, the wide-midfielders in the formation push alongside the striker to play as wingers, making a front three. It’s a structure in the attacking phase that focuses on creating angles to play through the lines at pace – in a similar fashion to Rodgers’ 4-3-3.
The idea with both formation shifts is to move and adjust the oppositions defensive shape. With Bielsa, it’s about creating diagonal passing angles (and lots of them) to progress the ball through the lines as quickly as possible – it’s why Leeds United look like they’re counter-attacking all the time, they’re incredibly fit and play a turnover-heavy style of football.
With Rodgers, it’s slightly different. The diagonal passing angles are definitely a staple in the transitioning formation, the wingers occupy the half-spaces between the oppositions centre-backs and full-backs, and are thus able to receive the ball relatively unmarked. The midfield compositions allows one of the central-midfielders to play slightly more advanced – ordinarily, James Maddison. However, Leicester City aren’t a turnover-heavy team, instead they look to keep hold of the ball and rotate possession if the opportunity doesn’t arise, instead of trying something hopeful and losing possession.
In the modern era, turnover-heavy teams have been extremely successful. Look at Liverpool under Juergen Klopp, how often does Trent Alexander-Arnold deliver a “hopeful” ball into the box that doesn’t reach any of the forwards? Often, but where does the loose ball result? It’s almost exclusively collected by the Liverpool midfielders and they’re now in a position of transition, which benefits them versus their opposition. With The Peacocks, it’s the same idea.
For what it’s worth, I think the Foxes might struggle with the intensity of Leeds United’s attack. Leicester City are often weak when adjusting to their defensive structure, as are most teams in fairness, so a quick transition into attack causes problems.
So far this season, Bielsa has lost two games. An opening day defeat to Liverpool, and a narrow 1-0 loss to Wolverhampton Wanderers. Interestingly, Rodgers has been utilising a 3-4-3 formation in the last few fixtures and Nuno Espírito Santo – Wolves’ boss, has implemented this formation for a few years at Molineux. With Wolves getting a win against Leeds United, could the Foxes benefit from using the 3-4-3 formation?
Arguably not, although Wolves were victorious in their game against Leeds, it wasn’t a fair reflection of the game – which ultimately, Bielsa’s side deserved to win. Looking at the expected goals (xG) from the game, shows you that Leeds should’ve won as by the aforementioned metric it was 1.6 xG to Wolves’ 0.5.
For Leicester to get a result today, Rodgers needs to get the initial game plan correct. On multiple occasions this season, he’s proven that he can get that part of the game spot on – Manchester City and Arsenal being the most compelling cases. However, his mid-game adjustments are still leaving a bit to be desired, his tactical switches and substitutions often feel negative and wrong. His opponent, Bielsa, is the mastermind of mid-game management, so ensuring the initial game plan works is of upmost importance.