Rotherham v Leeds

Depending upon how generous your interpretation of Yorkshire is, there are six Yorkshire clubs in the Championship this year, so there are plenty of Yorkshire derbies to look forward to.

This particular one will see big implications at the top and bottom of the league as third from bottom Rotherham United take on third from top Leeds United.

The two clubs have had similar sorts of trajectories over the last few seasons, except a whole league apart. Whilst Rotherham have been constantly oscillating between League One and the Championship, too good for the league below and constantly striving to stay in the second tier, Leeds have enjoyed a couple of years in the Premier League but their relegation last season was the result of some poor decisions.

The result of the movement between the tiers for these two clubs means that there hasn’t been a meeting between the two since the 2018/19 season. There are a couple of survivors in the playing squads from those encounters, but there are still things that we can learn from a betting perspective.

It should also be a fun trip down Memory Lane as some of the players involved in that season have since moved on to bigger and better things, whilst some have faded from view.

It was the first season of ‘Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United’ and they actually played Rotherham at Elland Road very early on in the season, although by then it was already clear that Bielsa was going to have a huge impact at the club.

Paul Warne was the Rotherham manager in 2018/19, they had won promotion in the previous season and, eventually, would be relegated again after a poor end to the campaign having stayed outside of the relegation zone for the first 32 weeks of the season.

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2️⃣ The Last Two: Rotherham v Leeds

Rotherham 1-2 Leeds, Date: 26th January 2019: Mateusz Klich increases his reputation as a goalscoring midfielder

Table-topping Leeds United visited the New York Stadium hoping to maintain momentum towards a Premier League berth. At this stage Rotherham were in 21st, two points clear of the relegation zone, but obviously requiring something from the game to keep their heads above water.

As had become traditional during the season, Leeds United dominated the game in terms of possession and pressure. The Bielsa reign had begun, and continued, in that vein, with the Championship struggling to cope with the intensity of the pressing and the speed of the attacking displayed by the Whites.

Leeds attempted more than double the number of passes that Rotherham did, 566 to 252, and completed 80% of their passes as opposed to only 58% for Rotherham. However, Warne’s more direct tactics seemed to be paying off as Semi Ajayi opened the scoring for the Millers from a Richie Towell delivery.

That said, Leeds were able to turn the screw and Mateusz Klich equalised early in the second half from a Pablo Hernandez assist, and the Polish midfielder, who had become one of Bielsa’s most trusted lieutenants already, scored the winner five minutes from time from a Jack Harrison assist.

Leeds also created two big chances that weren’t converted, had 14 shots to Rotherham’s five, and more than double the entries into the Rotherham final third, but it was still a massive relief for them to get the winner.

Other than Klich, who had three shots and scored two goals, it was notable from this game that Luke Ayling also had three shots from right back, and Ezgjan Alioski also had three shots from left back. It was typical of Bielsa’s Leeds in the Championship that both full backs were used as attacking weapons.

There are a couple of things we can learn about the nature of this derby as well. There were three yellow cards, but two of those were for Leeds after the winner had been scored, one for Kike Casilla for timewasting, so it couldn’t be described as a particularly nasty game on the pitch. In terms of tackles, Leeds tackled far more than Rotherham, despite dominating possession, again demonstrating the physical nature of their game at this stage.

Jack Harrison led the way with 5 attempted tackles, again Ayling and Alioski were up near the top of the tackle count, as well as defensive midfielder Adam Forshaw. Only Joe Mattock, Rotherham’s left back, challenged the Leeds domination of this metric.

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Leeds 2-0 Rotherham, Date: 18th August 2018: Bielsa-ball continues to convince at Elland Road

This was the third game of the Bielsa era at Leeds United and if supporters hadn’t already been convinced by a 3-1 victory at home to Stoke on the opening day, and a 4-1 battering of the Rams at Derby, then this Yorkshire derby shut-out of Rotherham could only have pushed them further into the pro-Bielsa camp.

Leeds enjoyed a massive 74% of possession on the day, as a mixture of Bielsa’s philosophy and Warne’s pragmatism came together in a blatant way.

To be fair to Rotherham, Leeds only actually created two big chances in the match, one of which was converted. Leeds almost trebled the number of successful passes that Rotherham managed, 643 v 227, but despite being under the cosh and in defensive mode for most of the match, Rotherham still managed nine shots and a big chance, which they failed to score from.

Kemar Roofe had a busy day with six shots, scoring the second goal on 71 minutes and assisting the first goal for Luke Ayling. He also created the other big chance that was missed.

On the day, Kalvin Phillips ran the show. He had 86 passes from central midfield, with 88% of them finding the target, albeit no Rotherham player had as many successful passes as any Leeds player, even Kemar Roofe completed 17 passes, the same as Ryan Williams of Rotherham, the highest of the Millers’ contingent.

Semi Ajayi again showed why he was destined for a move though with an excellent display in central defence for Rotherham, winning five out of five tackles.

From a disciplinary perspective, there was also one yellow card dished out in the match. That was to Rotherham’s Jon Taylor after 16 minutes. It is unusual to see most matches only have one yellow after 16 minutes, even more so for a supposed derby, so this is something to consider when looking at the disciplinary markets for Friday night’s match.

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