Marcelo Bielsa was always going to create headlines; was always going to incite furious arguments among bemused pundits unable to grasp the complexities of his tactics. The Premier League remains suspicious of outsiders.
When old-school pundits scoff at Bielsa’s experimentations, at Pep Guardiola’s delicate ‘tippy-tappy’ football, or at ‘the Professor’ Arsene Wenger’s innovations in the 1990s, what they are really alluding to is their distrust of a perceived pretension from continental Europe. Fearful and defensive English isolationists see innovation as intellectual snobbery; see ‘foreign’ ideology as somehow effete and un-masculine.
Note the glee with which pundits piled on Bielsa’s Leeds after a 6-2 defeat to Manchester United, in which accusations of idealism, chaos and disrespect dripped with the conservative British mindset. Note the silence when Bielsa’s Leeds beat good-old-Sean Dyche’s Burnley 1-0 with a gritty, feisty, and pragmatic performance seven days later.
Jose Mourinho breaks the mould of foreigners on English soil, a media darling from the moment he arrived at Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2005. That’s because his tactical philosophy felt brutally, clinically British: a defensive stoicism that ran at a counter-point to the glamour of the squad Roman Abramovich was building, and that made the press feel a little uneasy.
Fast forward 15 years and unsurprisingly the Premier League’s first Mourinho versus Bielsa is being billed as a wild battle between opposite; as pragmatist versus idealist, as the results man versus the mad dreamer, as the champion against the weirdo.
But that is not how this game will play out, as Leeds fans will know. Bielsa’s football is frantic and entertaining, but it is also meticulously crafted and against Spurs we will most likely see something more muscular, and low-scoring, than many predict.
Tactical pattern may be a surprise
Mourinho will be wary of the threat Leeds pose and double down on his side’s cautious approach. Spurs have been deploying a classically Mourinho midblock this season, rarely pressing the ball and instead focusing on compression between the lines, patiently waiting for opportunities to counter-attack through Son Heung-min and Harry Kane.
This hasn’t been working recently primarily because these two players have too much creative responsibility, and with so few men breaking forward that has left Spurs looking blunt. However, a deep defensive line is exactly the right system for facing Bielsa, as Burnley showed in their 1-0 defeat - and as West Brom learnt the hard way. Bizarrely, they were decompressed between the lines of defence and midfield and sat nowhere near deep enough to deny those Leeds runners.
Bielsa expects five or six players to make bursting vertical runs, expects his high pressing to win the ball and launch quick breaks, and expects his players to overload the flanks with brilliantly choreographed one-twos and diagonal runs. It is explosive and dizzying for the opposition – or at least it is if they attempt to play in an expansive shape themselves.
But when teams really sit back then the Bielsa madness becomes white noise as all those runners hit a wall; there is no benefit to incisive give-and-gos, or to charging counter-pressing, when all of that scurrying takes place in front of two banks of four.
That’s easier said than done, of course, but with Mourinho in charge Spurs are talented and disciplined enough to keep a lot of the Leeds creators quiet.
Tottenham’s creativity issues and how to hurt Leeds
Spurs have won just one of their last six games and scored only five goals in that time. Leeds will feel confident of keeping a clean sheet, not least because Bielsa will have followed a recent trend of marking Kane out of the game. That’s the problem with being overly reliant on one or two players: soon enough the rest of the league cottons on.
Kalvin Phillips, often left alone in central midfield as his team-mates flood the wings, might have his hands full with Harry Kane, although given Leeds deploy an unusual man-to-man press it is more likely that one of the centre-backs will happily follow Kane as he drops, stamping out his authority. Perhaps Son will have more luck finding space as Leeds’ right-back Stuart Dallas bombs forward, although with only one goal in his last five – and with Kane struggling to find him – Leeds will again feel confident.
Kane and Son running riot on the counter as Leeds pour bodies forward: that is the most obvious line to take and it is certainly possible, but there is a higher probability that Tottenham’s forwards will be stunted. Bielsa does not simply leave the back door open when Leeds attack. There is method here, and Leeds will have a plan to stop Tottenham’s counters.
Harrison can force another Spurs defensive error
Leeds are the more likely team to find a breakthrough and if they do it may come through Jack Harrison, arguably the most under-rated player in the Premier League this season. He has completed the third most key passes (34) in the league this season behind Kevin de Bruyne and Jack Grealish and was instrumental in the 5-0 defeat of West Brom last time out.
His direct opponent this weekend is an error-prone Serge Aurier, who consistently concedes penalties and will be faced with plenty of runners buzzing around the penalty area. Hugo Lloris has also been below his best recently and there is no doubt Leeds will pounce on any hesitancy in the Tottenham back line.
But more likely, Mourinho’s system will manage to hold Leeds at arms’ length. The Bielsa Debate has become a tad hysterical over the last few weeks and we must be careful not to get too caught up in the hyperbole. Their matches certainly can be a frenzy of activity. But an ultra-attacking team versus an ultra-conservative team does not tend to provide end-to-end action.
Mourinho – and, yes, Bielsa too – are more pragmatic than that.
Odds correct at 1000 GMT (01/01/21)
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