How Leeds Have Changed Without Kalvin Phillips
Leeds had just come off two mightily impressive performances (1.7-1.5 xG vs City and 1.6-0.5 vs Wolves) when Phillips went down. Since then, they have fallen from that level despite destroying Villa: they then got hammered by Leicester and lost badly vs Palace in a game they chased the entire night to still wind up behind on the xG count.
Leeds midfield has looked a lot different without Phillips. Let’s look at the players who have directly replaced him in the lineup:
We see they are playing much further up the pitch, inside 50 meters from goal when Phillips was just over 60 meters from goal. Struijk and Shackleton are not involved in ball progression (1.7 yards per minute) compared to Phillips (3.7). The Villa game might prove to be an anomaly when it comes to shot build ups, as Leeds fired 30 shots. The other 2 games, the replacement didn’t get involved in shot buildup either.
So what about Phillips midfield partner: well what Bielsa has done is essentially put most of Phillips load on the shoulders of Mateusz Klich.
A 40% rise in touches for Klich has meant basically he’s done all the midfield work himself: he’s been able to actually increase his efficiency per touch during this period despite basically starting from the same area. But when you combine Klich + Shackleton/Struijk (7.2 yards per min at 23 yards per ball loss) you still wind up well short of Klich/Phillips (8.7 yards per minute and 25 yards per ball loss).
I suspect ideally Klich would not be taking on such a load but that Struijk/Shackleton are simply not contributing at the level The System requires. 0.13 xG + xA per 90 for those Struijk/Shackleton minutes confirms there is no output alongside their lack of input.
Defensively
So are they at least plugging away defensively? Well, not really
Pressures and tackles/interceptions have both dropped 30% from Leeds midfield since Phillips went down.
In my Leeds piece about their attack, I worried about how the loss of Phillips was going to mess with one of the most exciting attacks in the early season. These last two games it has really hurt them, the midfield is often an empty, but crucial, space for Leeds and Shackleton and Struijk are not quite balancing it well right now.