Celina forced me into a change, admits Bielsa
MARCELO Bielsa revealed that the impact of Bersant Celina was the reason behind the early withdrawal of Kalvin Phillips during Swansea’s 2-2 draw with Leeds at the Liberty Stadium.
Graham Potter’s men flew out of the traps and took a deserved lead in the 24th minute as Oli McBurnie poked home, with Celina registering an assist.
And just minutes later, Phillips, who had earlier been booked for a foul on Swansea’s No. 10, was substituted, Lewis Baker going on in his place.
“He was almost our third centreback and he had to face Celina, who is a player who created a lot of actions and he got booked very soon,” said the Leeds manager.
“The development of the game after Phillips got booked didn’t offer the defensive security that we needed.
“Facing this possibility I chose to change him.”
Such was Swansea’s impressive first half, Bielsa made yet another change at the break as he sent on Jack Harrison in place of Ezgjan Alioski, with Patrick Bamford, who got the assist for Pablo Hernandez’s late strike against his former employers, replacing goalscorer Kemar Roofe in the 64th minute.
Despite seeing their winning start to the 2018-19 Championship season come to an end, the point they earned moved the Whites into top spot in the league.
But Bielsa admitted Swansea dominated large portions of the opening half, adding that he felt a draw was a fair result in the end.
“We didn’t defend very well and this did not allow us to dominate the game with regularity,” he added.
“The first half, our rivals Swansea dominated the game. It took us almost 25 minutes to get into the game.
“After their second goal we had bigger stability. After we scored again at 2-2 we dominated the game.
“We could have won this game but we could have lost it too.
“It was a nice game to watch and there are some important aspects that we have to correct. We didn’t defend well, there are justifications for that.
“Very soon during the game, of the five players who built the defensive structure, we lost three of them. This was an obstacle.
“In order to attack you have to defend well.
“The offensive performance of the team was good enough. If we got the ball faster and in a better way we would have had more actions on goal.
“From my point of view the draw is a fair result,” he added, “but if we defended better we could have won the game.
“We’ve only played a small part of the competition and I know it’s an important position to be first in the table, but it doesn’t mean a lot.”