This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…
Leeds United face Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday.
Aside from this being a good old-fashioned Yorkshire derby, there is another massive sub-plot to this game.
Of course, we’re talking about the fact that the Whites will be coming up against their former manager Garry Monk.
Last season the manager was in charge of Birmingham City, and he did the double over United.
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Monk got the better of Marcelo Bielsa last season, and it was a rare occasion as the Argentine held his hands up and stated that he’d made a tactical mistake.
Last season’s mistake
Last September, Leeds were handed their first loss of the season by Monk’s Birmingham City side courtesy of two first-half strikes from Che Adams.
Bielsa clearly wasn’t happy with what he was seeing and he made a substitution just 34 minutes into the game.
The former Marseille manager made the bold move of bringing off Kalvin Phillips for Stuart Dallas, and the Whites immediately managed to get a foothold in the game.
The Yorkshire outfit finished the match with 72 per cent of the possession, but that wasn’t enough to earn them any points as they lost 2-1.
Bielsa certainly won’t be making that same mistake against Monk this time, and that may mean that he once again opts to play Stuart Dallas in the midfield.
Why being the away goalkeeper at Leeds is the toughest job in football in the video below…
This time around
After he faced off against Monk at Elland Road last term Bielsa said: “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.”
It wouldn’t surprise anyone if the former Swansea boss lined up with a similar tactic once again in order to suppress Phillips’ impact.
To combat Monk’s tactics last year Bielsa brought Dallas on in the midfield, and despite fans criticising the role he has in the middle of the park, they might have to lump seeing him there again this weekend.
The Northern Ireland international can drop deeper in order to give the defence the same type of support he did against Birmingham last season in order to negate the fact that Monk will attempt to alienate Phillips and remove him from the game.
There have been calls for Dallas to stop playing in midfield, but it seems unlikely that this will be the match where Bielsa makes that change.
They may just have to wait a little longer.
