Leeds lose 4-2 at City Ground after Kalvin Phillips is sent off
Tuesday 1 January 2019 21:20, UK
Marcelo Bielsa claimed Leeds controlled the game against Nottingham Forest, even with 10 men, despite slipping to a 4-2 defeat.
Forest came back from 2-1 down to snatch the three points against a Leeds side who went a man down following the sending off of Kalvin Phillips in the 42nd minute.
The loss to Aitor Karanka's side saw Leeds' lead at the top of the Sky Bet Championship table reduced to two points, but Bielsa insisted his team had no reason to be cautious despite losing Phillips before half-time.
"We didn't lose the control of the game. I would say the opposite, that we could control the game even if we had one player less," he said.
"If you analyse the way the opponent scored the goals, they are not avoidable goals.
"That's why I don't think that we were not cautious enough. They were just counter actions that we could have avoided but they are not defining any actions.
"We had a succession of facts and all of these facts were against us."
Bielsa has named the same line-up for Leeds' last three matches and he praised the effort of his players despite registering consecutive losses for the first time this season.
He added: "We had to play with one player less. We were a little bit fragile in defence but during the 90 minutes we did everything to win. The players did a very big effort.
"It's not a new fact that we have problems on set-pieces and it's also not a new fact that we make it easier sometimes for the opponent to have chances to score.
"But the game has these kind of risks and the fact that we dared to play, sometimes it has negative aspects like today but it also gave us a style of play that we should be faithful to."
