Leeds United's game-plan under Marcelo Bielsa has revolved around individual battles ever since the Argentine arrived at the club. That's due to Bielsa's commitment to using a man-marking philosophy to build his play-style upon.
In this way of playing, it requires every Leeds player to mark their opponent tightly, wherever they might go on the pitch. This often involves fullbacks following wingers from one side of the pitch to another. Often this intense way of playing has overwhelmed opponents but since coming up to the Premier League last season, it has been exposed against better players at times.
In both games against Manchester United at Old Trafford and against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in 2020/21, Leeds found themselves losing their individual battles all over the pitch and fell to heavy defeats.
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However, they largely found that this particular tactic worked very well against sides in the bottom half of the table last season, helping them to a ninth place finish in the league.
This season the tactic has not worked as well against the lower teams in the league, with last weekend's 3-0 loss at Everton a prime example of this.
In an interview with Liverpool Echo, Mason Holgate explained how the Toffees set out to beat Leeds at their own game:
"We knew Leeds go man-for-man and we matched them and did more than that.
"It’s a unique game when you play Leeds, it’s literally man-for-man the whole game, but we were ready for that and dealt with it well I think.
"We stepped up and everybody won their personal battles and that’s what the game against Leeds is all about.”
At Goodison Park last weekend, it was clear from a very early stage in the game that the Whites were struggling with the intensity of their opponents.
Over the years of Bielsa's management of the club, it has regularly been the other way around. If Leeds are to pull away from the danger of the relegation zone behind them and find their way to some more comfort in the table, they need to get back on top of those individual battles against the lower half teams.
Of course, injuries to important players have made that more difficult and players like Liam Cooper and Kalvin Phillips are not far away from a return to Premier League action, which should help.
However, whether compromised by injuries or not, if Leeds are to continue under the man-marking style which Bielsa is wedded to, they need to find another gear within themselves to win those battles once again.
They managed it away to West Ham in January and ran out 3-2 winners. In their next run of fixtures, another performance and result like that would give a boost they will need to continue to do so in the second half of the season.
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