Marcelo Bielsa went out of his way to send a message to Tyler Roberts, after the half-time substitute was replaced 30 minutes into the second-haf against West Brom.
The Welsh international has recently returned from injury and following an impressive cameo against Charlton last week was given the nod by Bielsa at the break as he replaced Jamie Shackleton who picked up an injury.
Roberts came on with Leeds United 1-0 to the good following Gjanni Alioski's first-half strike, but with Leeds under heavy pressure from their previously unbeaten opponents, he was withdrawn in favour of Luke Ayling, as Bielsa changed shape to a 4-2-3-1.
Leeds would hold on to win following a gritty defensive display, ultimately proving Bielsa right to make his decision, but following the match he quickly made a point of outlining his decision to replace Roberts.
"I want to take advantage to express something because I am worried about the decision I had to take for the substitution of Tyler Roberts," he said following the first question of his post-match press conference which was about the team's general performance.
"Because for one player it is very hard to assimilate that he has played 25 minutes and accept he will come off again," he continued.
"The change was not for his performance because he worked a lot. Because after the 15 minutes, the shape of the match turned and changed. I was forced to make a change and put on a more defensive player in the middle of the pitch and he is more creative."
As is so often the case, Bielsa took full responsibility for a 'mistake' in his half-time tweak.
"I made a mistake because I didn’t read well what was going to happen in the match.
"Klich defended less than Shackleton. Roberts defended less than Klich and what was the need of the match is more energy difference and I didn’t have a better option than this decision that I took.
"I thought that was the only way to keep the match. The need of Tyler in the pitch was to have more presence in attack. After the match, we forced him to defend more and he had less contact with the ball. I am giving this explanation to explain little bit why I took this decision."
With Shackleton going off injured after replacing Adam Forshaw who is sidelined with a hip complaint, Bielsa may need to make more changes against Millwall on Saturday.
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