This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…
Eddie Nketiah’s injury will hurt Leeds United in a lot of ways.
Of course, there’s the obvious point that the Whites will be without their top goalscorer for three weeks, but there’s also another way in which this setback hampers Marcelo Bielsa’s plans.
Indeed, the Arsenal loanees injury could see one of the Argentine’s plans set back even further, and many Leeds fans won’t be happy to hear it.
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Two up top
United supporters have been clamouring for the manager to play both Patrick Bamford and Nketiah upfront with each other, and it looked as if we were moving towards that eventuality.
Indeed, Bielsa had said in one of his press conferences that he could get both in the team by playing one behind the other, and it seemed as if he was considering using that tactic in the near future.
However, the 64-year-old has previously complained that he’s not been able to see how the pair would work together in training due to Nketiah’s England U21 duties as well as fixture congestion.
It seemed as if Leeds would have had a perfect opportunity to work on playing both strikers together this week, but that simply can’t happen now that Nketiah is injured.
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Tactical setback
With Football Insider reporting that Nketiah will be out for over a fortnight, that means Bielsa won’t be able to experiment with a two up top tactic in training.
They say that the striker will have to convince the staff of his fitness after the upcoming international break, but even if he does there may not be a chance to train this new style for another couple of weeks as the Whites have to play three games in eight days after the break is over.
If Leeds are to use this new formation it won’t be for a little while, and that’s partly down to the injury Nketiah has suffered.
Not only is this a setback for the 20-year-old, it’s also a huge one both tactically and in terms of the potential of their attack.
After all, Bamford is now ten games without finding the back of the net.