Adrian Clarke looks at key tactical points in the opening round of 2021/22 fixtures.
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Leeds United will travel to Old Trafford on Saturday determined to give a far better account of themselves defensively than they did on their last visit.
Back in December they were beaten 6-2 by their north-west rivals, who exploited their man-to-man marking with a dynamic display full of progressive movement.
During the first half of the 2020/21 campaign, Marcelo Bielsa's side were the great entertainers, scoring plenty but also shipping a lot of goals.
But in the final 15 fixtures of the season Leeds showed consistent improvement.
The Yorkshire side limited their opponents to a maximum of one goal in 13 of those 15 contests to end a fantastic return to the top flight with an air of stability.
Joint-best defensive record
| Last 15 matches | Goals against |
| Chelsea | 12 |
| Leeds | 12 |
| Liverpool | 13 |
| Man Utd | 14 |
| Everton | 15 |
One quirk of that terrific defensive run was Bielsa's varied team selections.
Injuries and suspensions played a part in those choices but Diego Llorente, Pascal Struijk, Liam Cooper, Luke Ayling and Gaetano Berardi all enjoyed game time, with fellow centre-back Robin Koch sometimes pushed into central midfield.
Strikingly, as reflected in the table below, Leeds were far more likely to keep a clean sheet when deploying three central defenders in a 3-3-3-1.
Leeds defence in 2020/21 run-in
| Centre-back combinations | Apps | Goals against per 90 |
| Llorente & Struijk | 6 | 1.16 |
| Cooper & Llorente | 4 | 1 |
| Cooper & Struijk | 1 | 1 |
| Cooper, Llorente & Struijk | 1 | 0 |
| Ayling, Llorente & Struijk | 1 | 0 |
| Ayling, Cooper & Llorente | 1 | 0 |
| Ayling, Berardi & Cooper | 1 | 1 |
In Leeds' final pre-season friendly, a 2-2 draw with Villarreal, Bielsa selected a back four in his favoured 4-1-4-1.
The centre-back pairing consisted of captain Cooper and Struijk, who only played together once during that 15-match stretch.
Leeds intensity
No team covered more distance with their running than Leeds last term, and they also topped the rankings for most sprints too.
In that 6-2 defeat last season, Bielsa's men covered an extra 2.6km than Man Utd but interestingly Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's players matched their neighbours for high-intensity runs.
Leeds made 207 sprints to United's 205 and they will be looking to replicate that industry against their dangerous Matchweek 1 opponents.
Also in this series
Part 1: How Son can lead the line against Man City
Part 2: Can Henry expose Arsenal's right on opening night?
