Leeds United and West Bromwich Albion shared the spoils on New Year’s Day.
Slaven Bilic has shared that he wanted the Leeds United centre-backs to ‘have the ball’ and he thinks his West Brom side weren’t put under any ‘big pressure’ during their 1-1 draw on New Year’s Day.
The Albion boss also claimed that his side should have had a penalty in the first-half when Leeds midfielder, Klich, was ‘all over’ Romaine Sawyers.
Following that draw at the Hawthorns, Leeds remained top of the Championship table, as not many would argue that the two standout teams are sitting in the automatic places.
Speaking to Sky Sports Football (01/01/2020 5:15 pm start), Bilic shared some interesting tactical insight about how he was happy for the Leeds defenders to have the ball, how his side coped well against their threat and commented on that first-half penalty incident.
“We want their centre-backs to have the ball,” Bilic told Sky Sports. “And we were coping with that quite well [Leeds having possesion]. It was us who had the great chance to go 2-1 up, just before half-time [Philips chance].
“We defended well, they didn’t put us under big pressure. I wanted us to keep the ball better because we are normally good at that, although they did press well.
On whether Sawyers could have had a penalty: “I forget about it because the game was so intense but at that moment from what I have season, although, I have to praise the referee it was an extremely difficult game to be a part of and he didn’t lose his head and he was good. At the real-time when I watched it, it looked like the guy, their player was all over him, Romaine. But for me, at that time, it looked like it [a penalty].”
In the end, a point for both teams was the fair result, but Kiko Casilla will be bitterly disappointed that he didn’t deal with Albion’s goal a lot better.
Patrick Bamford, once again, made an impact for Leeds, as Bielsa will now need to look for a player who can challenge the striker following news that Eddie Nketiah’s loan deal is set to be cancelled, as reported by BBC Sport.
Nketiah did start against Albion, but he was subbed after 45 minutes, as that was now his last act for the Yorkshire giants.
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