Leeds United vs. Man City
Venue: Elland Road
Kick off: 5:30PM
The master takes on his most celebrated apprentice today when Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United welcome Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City to Elland Road.
The newly-promoted hosts go into the match off the back of successive league victories, whereas Man City will be keen to bounce back from their 5-2 defeat at home to Leicester City last weekend.
Compare the trophy cabinets of the two managers on Saturday and you would be forgiven for thinking that it was Bielsa who was trying to emulate Guardiola’s ideas and teachings.
Ask Guardiola himself, though, and he will reel off reason after reason why Bielsa is the standard by which all other managers should be judged.
That arguably the world’s best manager is such a devout disciple is a huge compliment to Bielsa, with the legendary Johan Cruyff perhaps the only other mentor figure Guardiola holds in such high esteem.
Yet Bielsa is still looking to get one over on his most successful student; the pair met three times during the 2011-12 season, when Guardiola’s Barcelona beat Bielsa’s Athletic Bilbao twice, with one draw too.
Today’s match will not be the first showdown between these two on the touchline, then, but it will still be a special occasion as two managers with similar philosophies go head to head.
The match comes at a time where Guardiola has seen his philosophy, or at least the success of it in the last year or so, questioned following last weekend’s heavy defeat to Leicester City – the first time Man City had conceded five at the Etihad and the first time any team managed by Guardiola had shipped that many in a single game.
Indeed, the former champions let in as many goals to the Foxes as they had in their previous 11 league games combined before that, so the recent club-record acquisition of Ruben Dias is a timely one.
Guardiola’s record of spending big on defenders has not always been exemplary so there will be plenty of pressure on the young arrival from Benfica to fix the problems which saw Man City finish 18 points adrift of Liverpool last season.
Last weekend’s defeat means that they already trail the champions by six points this time around – albeit with a game in hand – and if they fall to back-to-back top-flight defeats for the first time since December 2018 then serious questions will be asked about their ability to mount a title challenge again this season, even at such an early stage of the campaign.
Man City have only lost one of their last 31 Premier League games against promoted teams, but that did come towards the start of last season against Norwich City, and Leeds look far more equipped to cause their visitors problems than Norwich did.
The Whites have impressed upon their much-anticipated return to the Premier League, going toe to toe with Liverpool at Anfield in their opener before victories over Fulham and Sheffield United got them off the mark.
In a high-scoring season, Bielsa’s side have been some of the chief entertainers so far; only the top two of Leicester and Liverpool have scored more, but only their fellow promoted teams West Bromwich Albion and Fulham have conceded more.
Those stats are largely down to successive 4-3 score lines to begin the campaign, and things did calm down last weekend when a late Patrick Bamford header handed Leeds a 1-0 win at Sheffield United in the first Premier League Yorkshire derby for more than 19 years.
Leeds are now looking to win three consecutive Premier League games for the first time since January 2003 and have won 14 of their past 17 league matches at any level, keeping clean sheets in 11 of those victories.
Another clean sheet may be ambitious this weekend against the Premier League’s perennial top scorers, but they will fancy their chances of causing Man City at least as many problems as they caused Liverpool on the opening day, and another victory will raise debate as to what Bielsa’s side could go on to achieve this season.
For Man City, defeat would leave them with a mountain to climb already, although Guardiola will no doubt demand another response to last weekend’s performance having seen his side swiftly return to winning ways by beating Burnley 3-0 in the EFL Cup on Wednesday night.
Leeds United possible XI: Meslier, Ayling, Koch, Llorente, Dallas, Phillips, Costa, Klich, Roberts, Alioski, Bamford
Manchester City possible XI: Ederson, Walker, Dias, Laporte, Mendy, Fernandinho, Rodri, Mahrez, De Bruyne, Foden, Sterling.