‘Staggering’, ‘Suicidal’ – Phil Hay post on Leeds v Villa clash has lots of Whites fans talking
In his pre-match press conference on Wednesday, Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa revealed that Pascal Struijk would be the man to replace Kalvin Phillips in the Villa game, with the midfielder out for an undetermined length of time.
That had been thought to be six weeks but Bielsa said he could be out for less or more and that the info about the time scale was “incorrect”.
He also went on to say that Liam Cooper was a doubt and that Diego Llorente isn’t fit to play.
That creates another problem for Bielsa to solve.
The team news for the Villa game was posted by Phil Hay on Wednesday afternoon – and it got a lot of Leeds fans talking.
The big talking points were over Struijk playing the holding midfield role and who would drop into the centre-back spot alongside Robin Koch if Liam Cooper was injured.
One fan came up with a very leftfield suggestion, to put Mateusz Klich there and bring Pablo Hernandez into the line-up.
Another fan said that having an attacking midfielder do what Klich does would be “suicidal”.
Another fan said that Luke Ayling would drop into the centre, which would mean Stuart Dallas moving to the right and Gjanni Alioski coming in at left-back.
That would seem to be the most logical route for Bielsa to go down.
As for Struijk, the majority of fans have faith that the 21-year-old can do a job in the holding midfield role and that shows how far he’s come in a short space of time.
He’s made two starts at centre-back in the Premier League already, now he’s going to get the chance to show what he can do with his two good feet in midfield.
Here are the best of the rest of the reactions from Leeds fans, with one sagely pointing out that it’s “staggering” how many think they know more than Bielsa…
https://twitter.com/benji_coops/status/1318902317891149824
https://twitter.com/LeedsUnUnited/status/1318894227665915906
https://twitter.com/JacobWadsworth6/status/1318894885894762498
In other Leeds United news, Report: Big UK household brand wants Bielsa as new face of drink, Leeds ‘source’ responds