Pascal Struijk, Leeds United’s gateway

These, they say, are the dilemmas a manager likes; the three-or-four-into-two scenarios where candidates for shirts outnumber the shirts themselves and choices are not being made by default. Selection policy is a matter of preference, and better off because of it.

Or so the thinking goes.

But as Daniel Farke found over the weekend, choice is not without its pitfalls. If a Leeds United manager plays Liam Cooper, leaves out Joe Rodon and sees an erstwhile tidy defence concede sloppy goals, questions will be asked. Which naturally they were after Saturday’s 3-1 loss away to Southampton, where Rodon sat on the bench and watched it all unfold.

Farke was ready for the inquisition but did not see that defeat at St Mary’s as a simple case of who he had picked at centre-back. And to listen to him, he is happy with two defenders who are at different ends of the career spectrum. Cooper, Leeds’ club captain for six years, is nine months away from earning a testimonial, an increasingly rare phenomenon in professional football. Rodon is seven years younger at 25 and still trying to find the right home after his 2020 move from Swansea City to Tottenham.

On Rodon, Farke says he is “totally convinced of his quality”. In Cooper, he sees a “pretty key player”. There is room in the same line-up for both since one is right-footed and the other left-footed but Farke was not about to say how the pecking order actually looks to him. All that can be said is that for Cooper, the body clock is ticking.

Strujik in action at Southampton (George Tewkesbury/PA Images via Getty Images)

The discussion about him and Rodon, though, is obstructing attention from something else that is going on in the centre of Farke’s defence: in short, the sheer extent to which the play is running through one of his other central defenders, Pascal Struijk — involvement to a degree which makes his role in the new manager’s tactical strategy look pivotal.

Rodon, in most of his appearances since joining on loan from Spurs in early August, has been Leeds’ standout centre-back but Struijk is where the ball is going most often, the passing link which they are most locked into. It is possible that for all the talk of Cooper and Rodon, Struijk is the last player in that position Farke would want to omit.

Struijk was crying out for a big year this season because he, like others at a similar development stage at Elland Road, has been stunted by Leeds’ two-year decline in the Premier League; a left-back more often than a centre-back, leading to situations where occasional outings in central defence exposed his lack of continuity there. Where stability was needed, players found only flux.

Leeds suspected that he might be one of the names who sought to leave over the summer, to avoid stepping back down into the Championship, and an approach for him was made by Belgium’s Club Bruges in July. But Farke was in the building by then and told Leeds that they would be better off keeping Struijk. Perhaps at that early stage, he was already seeing how the 24-year-old Dutchman would fit.

The first game of the season, at home to Cardiff City, was a marker for how Struijk has made his presence felt.

Across the 90 minutes plus added time, in part because Cardiff were so on the defensive, he compiled 131 touches, 102 carries of the ball — defined by Opta as a player moving possession more than five metres from where they first received it — and completed 117 passes (a mere 80 fewer than Cardiff’s entire team, but that is not really the point).

While centre-backs in a side with Farke’s style were always likely to see a lot of the ball, Struijk’s numbers on day one were extremely high and set a trend which has continued, with him as a magnet for possession in deep areas. Beyond goalkeeper Illan Meslier, so much of the build-up starts with the Netherlands international. And while Rodon was recalled in place of Cooper for a 1-0 home win over Queens Park Rangers last night, it was Struijk who remained deep-set in their passing network.

The following comparison is not wholly perfect because Struijk has completed every minute of Leeds’ Championship season so far while Rodon missed the two matches before tonight. But despite that, in the table below it is not difficult to see a strong pattern in Meslier’s distribution.

Before the QPR game, 115 of Meslier’s completed passes had been directly received by Struijk. Rodon was second on the list but with a mere 34. There are balls into midfield, to Ethan Ampadu and Archie Gray, and fleeting distribution to Farke’s full-backs but the data indicates that when Meslier gets his head up with the ball at his feet, Struijk is the target he instinctively looks for. And Struijk is equally programmed to present himself as the free man and take it from him religiously.

As a result, Struijk is far out in front in several metrics at Leeds, among players with enough minutes this season to make the analysis meaningful: first for touches per 90 minutes (91.9), first for completed passes per 90 (74.7), first for carries per 90 (60.4), first for passes received per 90 (66.5) and consistently amassing the most progressive distance, helping Leeds move up the pitch. According to FBref.com’s data, he is broadly top 10 across the Championship too.

His 839 attempted passes in league games is miles ahead of Ampadu, second among Leeds players on 554. The distribution tends to be short of medium range and only a tiny fraction of Struijk’s passing falls into the long-range category. In no small way, he is being asked to pull the strings, far more than whichever centre-back is beside him.

Stuijk’s carries are significant because they contribute to his high tally of touches in individual matches.

Four times this season — against Cardiff, Birmingham City, Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton — he has touched the ball more than 100 times between first whistle and last, and a close eye trained on him will pick up the number of times Struijk is responsible for taking possession out from the back and bringing it forward. Rodon is averaging 37.4 carries per 90 this season, and Cooper 44.8. Struijk is well clear of both at 60.4 and his duties are a fundamental part of the way Leeds are set up to play.

Rodon’s recall helped normal service resume last night, against a QPR side who were completely impotent before half-time and ended the game with striker Lyndon Dykes in goal after a dubious 90th-minute red card for Asmir Begovic.

Covering runs, one of Rodon’s big strengths, and a solid understanding with Struijk kept the west Londoners at arm’s length and Crysencio Summerville’s early goal did the rest, despite the second half lacking the order of the first.

But Struijk, who had the luxury of missing a sitter, was there again with 87 touches (only team-mate Sam Byram had more among all players on the pitch) and a match-leading 61 completed passes; Leeds’ gateway at the back.

(Top photo: Tim Goode/PA Images via Getty Images)