Assistant manager Rene Maric has revealed Leeds United want to be more tactically 'flexible and adaptable' during the second half of the season. The Whites were beaten 4-2 by AS Monaco at Elland Road on Wednesday night in what was their final winter friendly ahead of the Premier League's return next week.
It has been a mixed bag of performances across the three matches, with Leeds rather fortuitous to come away with a 2-1 win at Eibar, before producing a much improved display in the 2-1 victory over Real Sociedad. The first half against Monaco was arguably Leeds' best yet, but an all too familiar second half collapse at the back was a worrying sight ahead of Manchester City next week.
Jesse Marsch has used a 4-2-3-1 formation for almost the entirety of his time in charge at Elland Road so far, but has used these friendlies to experiment with a 4-3-3 as he looks to find solutions to addressing Leeds' issues at the back. Speaking to the press after the game, Maric claimed that becoming more adaptable within matches is an area Leeds are keen on improving.
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He said: "Yeah, we'll just be looking at things. How we can combine the players that we have in different situations, how we can adapt if the opponent is more flexible, if they change things. We think that having three midfielders and varying them, playing more on the wing or more in the centre.
"So one of them moving out wide against the ball, with the ball, it’s just the things that you're trying on in pre-season because you now have the time to adapt the second or third formation and that's part of the reason why we're doing it.
"We think with our squad and this what teams in general, not just Man City, but especially what other teams are doing in the league, we just want to be flexible and be adaptable. I think that's one way to go also just looking at the whole second part of the season."
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