Aleksandar Mitrovic and Ivan Cavaleiro may be the Championship’s two best attackers, but Leeds United’s defence matched them on Saturday and that’s the bottom line for Marcelo Bielsa.
The Whites saw their unbeaten streak ended at 11 matches as Fulham ran out 2-1 winners on Saturday through a penalty and Josh Onomah piledriver.
Neither Mitrovic, nor Cavaleiro, nor Bobby Decordova-Reid truly cut through the United backline in Bielsa’s opinion.
Bielsa waxed lyrical about the qualities of the Cottagers and feels they may well be the Championship’s best team, especially when you assess the statistics.
The Elland Road chief did not feel Fulham had anything more than the ability to counter attack and, even then, they failed to truly hurt the visitors.
“Their performance in attack described our performance in defence,” he said.
“Honestly, I don’t want to not give value to what the opponent did, but I didn’t see the opponents’ attackers unbalance the game.
“We are talking about Cavaleiro and Mitrovic, they are maybe the most important [players] in the league.
“How Fulham play is [as] the best team in the league. If you analyse the statistics, they will describe the level of one team.
“It’s clear Fulham is the best team in the Championship, but today the things the opponent created, they couldn’t score with that.
“They had the possibility to counter attack. That is something they do well and they didn’t create chances with that.
“The save of [Kiko] Casilla was more linked with one mistake of us than something they build.
“Honestly, I have to say our defence was good. In attack, even if it was a tough match, we have eight, nine, 10 chances to unbalance the match.”
