MOT View: Wasteful display proves Leeds talent is wasting his golden opportunity
Barring a couple of minor wobbles against Cardiff City and Luton Town, the Championship restart has been a really positive spell for Leeds United.
Thursday night’s 5-0 win over Stoke City was the most dominant illustration yet of just how ready for the Premier League Marcelo Bielsa’s truly are.
But one man who continues to underwhelm a little is Tyler Roberts.
The 21-year-old has been handed the unenviable task of filling in for Pablo Hernandez during the run-in, but his outing against the Potters reminded us that he still has some way to go before he is competing on the same level as the Spaniard.
And a direct comparison between the two players really highlights the gulf in class.
Roberts made just 15 successful actions during his first half display, whereas Hernandez made 33, as per Wyscout.
His pass completion rate in particular was 15% worse than the 35-year-old’s and his shot accuracy was 33% worse.
In particular, Roberts’ pass map illustrates a player who isn’t impacting the game enough in a positive sense.
Of his 11 successful passes, just four went forward in the opponent’s half.
And there’s a general lack of composure too.
Take the image above, for example.
In that position, with Patrick Bamford as the only option ahead of him, the smart thing for Roberts to do would be to hold on to possession to allow his teammates to catch up with the play.
Instead, he tries to bend an unfathomably difficult pass into space, and has it cut out with ease.
If you’re trying that at 5-0, fair enough, but to do so at 0-0 shows a little bit of immaturity.
And please don’t mistake this as a case of running him down for the sake of it.
There is a reason why Bielsa trusts him, and his potential is obvious.
The pass below, sliding a great, simple ball into Mateusz Klich in a dangerous area, is superb, for instance.
But it’s the fact that we know Roberts is capable of that level of quality that makes his other discrepancies so disappointing.
If he learns to cut out some of that wastefulness, he will progress at a much faster rate.
As for this present moment in time, however, an extended run in the starting XI was a golden opportunity to prove his worth to Bielsa.
You would have to say that he’s struggling to take it.
In other Leeds United news, Adrian Durham has compared the Whites with “useless” Tottenham.