Marcelo Bielsa has said that Stuart Dallas and Helder Costa will “probably” be back in the Leeds United side to start versus Stoke on Thursday.
Dallas and Costa both missed the win at Blackburn on Saturday due to injury issues but their replacements – Barry Douglas and Ezgjan Alioski – managed to impress.
Bielsa seems confident that if one or both of Dallas and Costa cannot play then he has confidence in Douglas and Alioski being able to step up again.
“Probably Dallas and Costa play. Today they trained normally. In case they are not able to play, Douglas and Alioski are going to play instead,” said Bielsa on Tuesday in his pre-match pres conference, as quoted by LeedsLive.
As well as Douglas did on Saturday in the 3-1 win at Ewood Park, we would much rather see Dallas play at left-back than the former Wolves man.
Dallas is a player of the season contender for the Whites while Douglas seems to put in a great performance every now and then before seeing his form dip.
Douglas is also injury prone and in the final year of his contract at Elland Road so it would make more sense to have an eye on the future by sticking with Dallas.
That is, of course, if he’s fit.
If he is not fully fit then it should be Douglas at left-back.
As for Costa and Alioski, we would prefer to see Alioski even if Costa is fit based on how well the North Macedonia international has done sine the season restarted.