'Spygate' Leeds Suffer Stoke Loss

London, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Jan, 2019 ) :Leeds United's lead at the top of the second-tier English Championship was cut to one point after a week of further spying revelations ended with a 2-1 loss away to Stoke City.

Far from backing down after admitting to sending a club employee to spy on a Derby training session ahead of as 2-0 win over the Rams, this week saw Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa insist he had taken the same approach with all of their Championship opponents this season.

Sam Clucas gave Stoke a second-half lead before Leeds were reduced to 10 men when Pontus Jansson was sent off.

Joe Allen doubled Stoke's lead before Leeds grabbed a consolation goal deep into stoppage time through Ezgjan Alioski.

This was Nathan Jones's first win as Stoke manager and the Potters boss, previously in charge of Luton, said he had changed his formation to 3-5-2 in response to Bielsa's latest comments.

"It's been well-publicised Marcelo watched 26 Luton games and two Stoke games, so he's well drilled on what our usual formation is," said Jones.

"So we thought we may have to give him a surprise because, if he's that well drilled on us, they've had plenty of time to work on it, so it'd be a difficult afternoon." Meanwhile, Bielsa refused to blame this defeat on not watching Stoke's pre-match training session.

"We can't say we ignored the features of the opponent," said Bielsa. "We just didn't take advantage of the possibilities we had.

"Maybe the analysis I'm making of the game isn't the right one," the veteran Argentinian manager added.

Second-placed Norwich's win at home to Birmingham on Friday cut Leeds' advantage to one point, with the top two set to meet at Elland Road on February 2.