By Vinay Shankar (Tactical Analyst)
A poor second half threatened to disrupt our season but luck and terrible finishing intervened to keep up the momentum:
· Rotation of personnel as much as possible is crucial in this crazy month of fixtures but long away trips are bound to cause fatigue. Added to that, a delay at the start and warming up again can disrupt the rhythm and for a quick starting team, the impact is much more.
· Tomiyasu has always been one of the most secure players at any point in a game and his poor start set the tone for the overall performance.
· Similar to Bodo Glimt, Leeds focused on pressing the full-backs as much as possible. Rather than press high from goal kicks, the home side blocked the passing lanes and pressed high when the ball was recycled backwards.
· On the rare occasions that Arsenal's front four received the ball in space, the direct threat caused Leeds a lot of problems. The number of second balls won was also on the lower wide making it a very end-to-end game.
· The second was one-way traffic for the most part. Leeds seemed to feed off every turnover and mistake to increase the pressure with the crowd joining in. The Arsenal players just couldn't keep up with intensity as duels were lost all over the pitch and every mistake led to a counterattack. Aronson and Sinisterra were always finding the spaces to exploit with ease from turnovers. The introduction of Bamford gave an added threat to the home side with the Englishman's runs between the centre-backs causing a lot of tense moments.
· The lack of threat up front was synonymous with Jesus's intensity. The Brazilian didn't seem to be fully fit and his Off-the-ball movement was reduced considerably with his trademark runs to drift into the flanks very far and few.
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