I knew, like the vast majority of Leeds fans, exactly what to expect when the 2 pm team news was revealed. I immediately stuck a tenner on Southampton to win, told my mates to do the same, and told my dad Leeds would struggle to build any attacks without Phillips anchoring the midfield and with Roberts at ‘10’. As it happened Roberts was one of our better players, but all it took was a clever swivel and wayward long-range drive to win such acclaim.

I often fear the worst, but this wasn’t empty pessimism. The nine games Phillips missed last season yielded the PPG of relegation fodder – one point per game – and this season Leeds have a non-Phillips PPG of zero. This led me to wonder about our great leader, the most meticulous manager in football. His staff trawl through every minute of all the opponents matches to provide information on how they play and where they are most successful, including win percentages when certain players play in certain positions. But I doubt whether Bielsa pays such attention to his own team’s historical evidence. I imagine Bielsa will be solely focussed on what his players are capable of achieving, working in the here and now and pushing them to be better, with no respect for the results that have gone before. Rightly or wrongly. The Great Man can be wrong too, of course, nobody can make the right call every time, and on Saturday Bielsa got it wrong, but what could he have done to get it right?

There is a growing clamour for Lewis Bate to fill Phil’s void, but under-23 football is nowhere near the level of the Premier League – most of the opposition won’t even make it as professional footballers (I’ll look forward to researching the Sunderland team that Summerville danced around last week to see where they are in five years’ time). Bielsa and his staff see Bate in training every day and are best placed, and best qualified, to know if and when he is ready. The same goes for Joffy Gelhardt, who was the only alternative to the other big problem at Southampton, Rodrigo Moreno, who put more effort into not being involved than trying to positively affect the game. My cynical marking of 1/10 was backed up by Graham Smyth, who gave him a 2/10 in the YEP. With Klich off form Leeds’s spine was too weak, and try as they might, Jack and James couldn’t help. Raphinha might have helped. Ten minutes from the bench might have been all we needed from our superstar, and I can only presume he was carrying a knock. If not, then I will happily criticise Bielsa for not just chucking him on and hoping for the best.

Looking deeper into what went wrong on Saturday brings us into the murky waters of criticising Marcelo Bielsa’s whole philosophy. It’s clear Leeds aren’t as comfortable when playing with three at the back rather than four, but this is not a decision Bielsa makes. His man-marking structure requires a spare defender or the whole thing breaks down, if you waver from that you are throwing everything that has made us successful out of the water. The other area of concern is our threadbare squad. It isn’t threadbare, but it is small. It means we don’t have proven options to bring on from the bench when we have six first-teamers missing. Is that such a big deal? It didn’t help on Saturday, but again it comes back to Bielsa’s philosophy. He believes that to unlock their maximum potential, the players must feel on the cusp of playing every match. A 25-man squad would not be as motivated to make the sacrifices needed to produce off-the-chart running stats like our 18-man squad has done over the last three years.

This church was re-built on Bielsaball and I believe in it wholeheartedly, in fact, I cherish it; there’s nothing better in football. Yet the Premier League table is starting to take shape and Leeds are 17th, last season’s brilliant end-of-season form is stretching further and further into the past, and December’s fixture list will be even more daunting if the Whites have not climbed the table by the time the Christmas lights are switched on. El Loco once joked that his ‘Plan B’ is doing ‘Plan A’ better, and Leeds need to start doing Plan A better, and soon. 

Rocco Dean - Author of Marcelo Bielsa vs The Damned United (order on Amazon)