Marcelo Bielsa praises Robin Koch's best performance yet for Leeds United

The German centre-back has been the quickest of all the Whites' summer signings to adapt, playing every minute of Premier League football to date. On Monday he had to deal with the disruption of seeing centre-back partner Liam Cooper pull out of the game in the warm-up, but struck up a good relationship with replacement Pascal Struijk in what Bielsa described as his best display for the club.

“He has performed at a good level in all of his games and in the first half against Wolves he had a performance above what he had been showing, which was already good,” commented coach Bielsa.

With Diego Llorente injured, Cooper doubtful to face Aston Villa on Friday and Struijk likely to be pressed into a holding midfield role by Kavlin Phillips's shoulder injury, Koch will have an important part to play again at Villa Park.

In general, Bielsa was pleased with the way his players performed against Wolves, just frustrated that their inability to make it count led to a 1-0 defeat. The coach says his players understand why that happened.

Bielsa's reflections on the night were brief, but his later comment that Leeds dominated 70 of the 90 minutes was probably fair. Crucially, though, they only had two shots on target. Wolves had just three, but scored with one.

“The game had three moments: the first half, a period in the second half between the fifth minute and around the 25th minute and then the final part of the game,” said Bielsa.

“Although they were not better than us we weren't able to dominate (in the middle spell) as we had in the previous period. This was clear because we didn't generate any danger in that 20-minute period.

“A team like us who attacks, it's not good when our attacks don't create danger. During that 20-minute period although we were still an offensive team we didn't manage to create any danger. When this happens the opponent feels we're not able to cause as much danger and this makes the game more even.

“Whilst they didn't create a lot of danger, they scored a goal.

“In the final 20 minutes we were able to dominate them as we did in the first half.

“We had a large percentage of dominance of the game, around 70 minutes of the 90.

“The individual performances were in general all good.

“We attacked well and we defended well. We created around eight to ten opportunities to score a goal but in those 20 minutes our opponent scored and when you face a rival like we did on Monday who are very physical and get involved in a lot of duels it's very important the chances you create, you make them into goals.

“We understand why we lost the game even though we shouldn't have as we dominated a large majority.”

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