Dave Woods

Tue 26 November 2019 11:20, UK

This article is part of a regular series from Leeds United Twitter account All Stats Aren’t We – the team also host a brilliant podcast that goes in-depth into the tactics of Marcelo Bielsa and a deeper look at the underlying stats

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• Reading v Leeds United
• Tuesday, 8pm 

Some thoughts ahead of Leeds United’s trip to the Madejski Stadium to face Reading tonight.

We’ve got a real soft spot for Reading. They’re a really fun team to watch and they have John Swift who is just a maestro of a central midfielder.

We also think that if Marcelo Bielsa had a season at Reading, he would get this team pushing for promotion. As it is, they have to do with Mark Bowen who took up the position in October after previous manager, José Gomes, was fired.

Interestingly enough, Bowen has broadly kept the team playing the same way as his predecessor. Having become the club’s sporting director in summer, there is clearly some sort of broader plan that Reading are working towards.

There have been some tweaks. John Swift was playing in a more advanced role before Bowen arrived but now he has changed places with Ovie Ejaria in central midfield.

As to the rights and wrongs of this, there is an argument to be made that Swift’s incisive passing suits Reading further forward. And Ejaria’s work as an 8 – particularly defensively –is probably slightly more valuable. But there we go.

Reading play in a 3-5-2

Leeds fans should notice structural similarities between this line-up and Leeds’ own. The back three, of course, we have seen Leeds play on a number of occasions whenever the opposition play a strike partnership. Reading do and so we’ll see that on Tuesday evening.

Michael Morrison is a classic centre-back flanked by Liam Moore and Matt Miazga who are better on the ball. In front of them, there are three midfielders who function in a manner comparable to Leeds’ own when they field a three.

Andy Rinomhota is the Kalvin Phillips of the triangle. He isn’t as good a distributor as Phillips, obviously, and so John Swift operates as the fulcrum around which the Reading team move, picking the ball up, carrying it, and progressing it with his often inventive passing.

Ovie Ejaria is currently being used as a Matteusz Klich-type player: he is more of an eight than a ten but he has more freedom than most eights. On either side of the midfield, Omar Richards and Andy Yiadom take up advanced positions and look to go deep into the opposition half.

Reading play two strikers: Sam Baldock and George Puscas. Baldock is more of a battling forward while Puscas is more a traditional frontman.

Given that Swift isn’t the most defensive of individuals, much of the midfield coverage is left to Rinomhota who is helped out by his wing-backs:

Once the ball is won back, it inevitably finds its way to Swift who can progress the ball by passing or carrying it.

Having compacted in a deep area, Reading look to decompress: the wing-backs move up the field and Ejaria and the forwards look to find space in the opponent’s structure. When counter-attacking, the two strikers will often split, leaving space for Ejaria to run into:

Fortunately for Leeds, Reading are fairly predictable in their movement. So Bielsa will have a good idea of how he’s going to counteract them.

How to deal with Swift

The biggest issue is how to neutralise Swift. With Swift playing as a ten, you would expect to see Phillips man-marking him. His deeper position poses a problem. Do you sacrifice the deeper eight – likely Klich tomorrow – and get him man-marking?

Likely, this will happen. Phillips will mark Ejaria, but Bielsa would expect him to do a lot more of the ball-progression that the deeper eight would usually do.

With an opposition strike partnership, Leeds will go with a back three. This raises questions about the wing-back positions. Will they go Dallas out right and Harrison out left?

Bielsa has already hinted that he is sticking with the same group of players so this is a distinct possibility, meaning that Patrick Bamford and Tyler Robert could form a striker partnership and look to find space in between Reading’s back three.

With Pablo Hernandez playing his usual deep inside forward, the resulting line up will probably look something like this:

The other option is the 3-3-1-3:

There are questions though: who plays left wing-back? Will a front three against a back three just cancel itself out? Will Roberts just be dropped? Will Bielsa be happy to go with a Phillips-Klich pairing against a midfield three that he has called “creative”?

We have a tendency to claim that every game will be very interesting from a tactical point of view – under Bielsa, there’s a case that that is true. But this is one of the games we’re most looking forward to this season.

Reading’s position in the league belies how good they are and, despite the fact I think Bowen isn’t getting the most out of his players, we still think they have the capacity to pull something off.

With all this in mind, we’d not be surprised if we only took a point away at the Madejski. But this is a match we probably should be winning. One thing is for sure: we don’t think Reading will be sitting as deep as Luton did…

In other Leeds news, 19y/o turns heads – 3 things we learned from U23s in 2-0 win v Wigan