Marcelo Bielsa insists 10-man Leeds controlled the game in Forest loss | OneFootball

Leeds were involved in another wild and unpredictable match on New Year’s Day. However, this time, the result didn’t go their way.

Despite going into the dressing room at half-time down a goal and down a man after Kalvin Phillips was sent off in the 42nd minute, Leeds staged a lovely comeback and were up 2-1 through 64 minutes.

Although Leeds had the momentum, they allowed Nottingham Forest to score three times in a seven-minute span and lost 4-2 to see their lead at the top of the Championship table fall to two points after Norwich earned a 1-1 draw away to Brentford.

Manager Marcelo Bielsa was quick to praise his players despite losing back-to-back matches for the first time this season.

“We didn’t lose the control of the game. I would say the opposite, that we could control the game even if we had one player less,” he said.

“If you analyse the way the opponent scored the goals, they are not avoidable goals.

“That’s why I don’t think that we were not cautious enough. They were just counter actions that we could have avoided but they are not defining any actions.

“We had a succession of facts and all of these facts were against us.

“We had to play with one player less. We were a little bit fragile in defence but during the 90 minutes, we did everything to win. The players did a very big effort.

“It’s not a new fact that we have problems on set-pieces and it’s also not a new fact that we make it easier sometimes for the opponent to have chances to score.

“But the game has these kind of risks and the fact that we dared to play, sometimes it has negative aspects like today but it also gave us a style of play that we should be faithful to.”

After their FA Cup third round tie at QPR, Leeds will try to bounce back with three points against Frank Lampard’s Derby County side.