Leeds travel to Sheffield Wednesday on Friday night, live on Sky Sports Football
Wednesday 26 September 2018 17:02, UK
Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa will name the same side for the fourth successive game on Friday against derby rivals Sheffield Wednesday.
Bielsa's side slipped to their first league defeat of the season last weekend against Birmingham, but the Argentine apportioned no blame on any of his players after admitting to a tactical error.
"It's not a responsibility of the players," he said.
"It's a decision I took, and a wrong decision. The reality of the game indicated to me I did not take the right decision. I knew we had two options.
"The possibility of building a line of three with Luke Ayling or with (Kalvin) Phillips. I decided to build the line of three with Phillips, making him do movements forward and backwards. Two possibilities of being in front of (Liam) Cooper and (Pontus) Jansson or behind.
"With this system I could keep all of the good things from the Preston game. Samu (Saiz) and (Mateusz) Klich attacked well from the centre to the sides and Phillips started the game well as a number four. I wanted to keep all of these positive features of the team.
"When we didn't have the ball I wanted to build with a line of three and with the ball a four, but it didn't work. This was a mistake. I thought it would work, but it didn't. That's why the players are not responsible and I will try not to make any mistakes."
The Argentine also discussed the early substitution of Phillips, for the second time, saying it was a result of his own selection mistake rather than any fault of the player.
"I decided to substitute Kalvin. This does not draw the portrait of Kalv, it draws my own," he added.
"If you deeply analyse the decision I took you will say I corrected a mistake I made. For me, it's a very difficult situation for two reasons. The last thing I want is to hurt a player as noble as Phillips because he's very generous. I can't make the same mistake again.
"If I think the game is not well designed and I don't take a solution, I make a double mistake because the first mistake is I made a mistake and I wouldn't dare to correct the mistake.
"We could say 'poor Phillips' but the people who understand football say 'what a bad decision Bielsa took because he has to change after 30 minutes a decision he took'."
The Whites have no new injury worries, but Kemar Roofe (calf), Patrick Bamford, Gaetano Berardi (both knee) and Pablo Hernandez (hamstring) are still out.
"I won't change any player," Bielsa revealed.
"Bamford and (Izzy) Brown (knee) won't be with us for a long time. Roofe is close to the first team, not immediately, but he's close. Berardi and Pablo also are close to the first team, not as close as Roofe."
