Et par punkt om Bielsas defensive spillemåte:
Look, for all the people who haven’t been able to watch pre season, or have watched it with their eyes shut.
We have been playing a back FOUR with Phillips (or Klich) dropping into the back THREE when necessary (I.E. when they have the ball).
The fullbacks play high up the pitch with a wingback role in attack.
4-1-4-1
But it’s fluid!
One of Bielsa´s principals (which you´ve probably read) is to always have 1 more defender than they have attackers, so 3v2 or 2v1. A lot of the time it will be 2v1, as more teams play with 1 striker, in which case we´ll have Pontus to win the high balls and Berardi to cover. Pontus really is an absolute beast in those sorts of aerial battles around the halfway line, and Berardi is aggressive and has enough of a leap to win his fair share, but most of the time he´d cover the knock down.
If it´s a 3v2 scenario then they´re unlikely to have 2 big lads up top as then they´d have no pace to catch us out, so again - Pontus can mark the target man and Berardi and Phillips cover the second ball.
Re Huddersfield - they didn´t play as high up as we will be, in particular I imagine Ayling and Douglas will be playing higher up than Smith and whoever their other FB was.
Mer
Agree completely with this - and still not quite sure why people are struggling to get their heads around it when it's what pre-seaons's largely been all about (other than due to their deep-rooted if unfair dislike of Phillips, of course).
Bielsa seems to like his "back 2 + 1" to be mobile and so a proto-midfielder being a central part of that makes complete sense. Phillips will be middle-CB / sitting mid, depending on the flex between 3-3-3-1 and 4-1-4-1, whether people like it or not, and he's done a great job of it to date, bearing in mind he's learning a completely new position. (And for what it's worth, I like the hair - it exudes confidence and notoriety!) Meanwhile, Cooper will be LCB (I think for the foreseeable), again whether people like it or not, and he's similarly made a pretty good fist of it so far, whatever anyone might wish to think - I'd love him to have a great season, and I'm sure MB's doing lots to work on his concentration and consistency behind the scenes. I would suggest on Sunday that Berardi will be RCB too, and what he might lack in height, he certainly makes up for in pace and leap. Again, mobility and adaptability (not old-clogger, get yer 'ead on t'ball, pal) credentials are key. At some point Jansson might well take that RCB slot, but I do think Bielsa's quite enjoyed having Berardi there to date for his combative and forward-thinking (occasionally even marauding) spirit.
The other thing worth noting is how quickly the back five (Dallas and Ayling to date) are able to drop in to form a covering 4 when needed, and sometimes even on opposite sides of the pitch. This is clearly still a learning process, but it's impressive to watch, even if fraught with the odd glitch and danger, and at goal kicks, they were even occasionally dropping to a flat back 5 too. I also think the other thing to watch is, while the wing backs are encouraged to overlap, they are also often encouraged to run "post routes" (sorry!) coming inside the wide men of the front three. This gives the team far more and harder to mark attacking angles - again, this is something we're getting used to.
My only other change to the above would be that I think Roberts is more likely to play right and Harrison (or Hernandez) left, but again, the front 3 seem to switch with ease.
While everyone's quick to point out how we might be vulnerable to Stoke's height and pace, as an opposition manager, I expect it's quite hard to work out how to sort your own marking to deal with what can quickly morph into a front 6 or 7.
Exciting times. But please please try to be patient with it, cos otherwise, we're doomed from the get-go...