EFL Championship 2019/20: Brentford vs Leeds United – tactical analysis

Leeds United’s new calendar year slump continued, as they lost all the points in weekend’s EFL Championship fixtures. In the midweek clash, they travelled to Griffin Park to play against Brentford. However, despite having a higher xG, Marcelo Bielsa’s team still failed to secure an away win. The hopes of being promoted directly to the Premier League is slowly fading.

Thomas Frank’s team was enjoying a strong run recently, with seven wins in their last 13, only losing twice. They climbed to the fifth of the table and provided a stern test for Leeds.

In this tactical analysis, we will show you how Brentford drew against Leeds United. This analysis focuses on the tactics adopted by both managers.

Lineups

Frank started with the exact squad as they did in the win against Middlesbrough. The midfield trio was formed by Christian Nørgaard, Joshua Dasilva and Mathias Jensen; the front three were Saïd Benrahma, Bryan Mbeumo and Ollie Watkins.

Leeds only had one change from the last game, as Ezgjan Alioski stayed on the bench. Ben White returned to the centre of the defence, partnered with Liam Cooper; Luke Ayling was moved to the right-back and Stuart Dallas played as a left-back; Kalvin Phillips returned from suspension and played as a lone pivot.

Leeds’ attack was well-planned

As their own style, Leeds tried to keep the ball and play out from the back in the first phase of their attack. Again, in this match, Leeds used two centre-backs (Cooper & White) and the sole pivot (Phillips) to form a passing triangle in their own half. They had 68.42% of possession and 516 passes in this game.

For the two advanced midfielders (Pablo Hernández & Mateusz Klich), they stayed higher and seldom dropped in the build-up phase. Leeds were confident to progress the ball with these three players.