When the preseason tour schedule was announced, the fixture that stood out was Thursday’s game against Borussia Monchengladbach.

It did not let us down.

At this stage of preparation, you need serious tests and you need for it be more competitive than the earlier fixtures. Both Leeds and Monchengladbach played the game at full throttle, and at times I forgot it was a friendly.

The lads performance gave us a lot of positives but there were 3 key points that emerged from the game…

Midfield dilemma for TC

I have discussed the midfield in a lot of detail over the last few weeks. Christiansen has an abundance of midfielders to choose from and every one of them has played some quality football during preseason.

On Thursday, Leeds started with O’Kane and Phillips in the middle of the park and both were brilliant throughout the game.

Phillips showed the talent he has. Leeds played a short passing possession game and Phillips thrived. The patient build-up employed by Leeds meant Phillips was allowed to be effective without being under any real pressure. He was accurate with his tackles and distributed the ball accurately.

O’Kane also had a good game — I think the tactics that Christiansen plays are similar to those of Eddie Howe at Bournemouth. O’Kane played an integral part when Bournemouth got promoted, and he showed yesterday that he may be able to to do the same for Leeds.

It was O’Kane’s decision making that really impressed me, he used the short passing to give him a yard of space and pinged the ball forward to the wingers and Chris Wood.

The game became a little more scrappy after the two were substituted, and it will be very interesting to see who starts against Eibar.

Not converting chances not a bad thing… yet

One of the criticisms of Leeds so far is the fact they are struggling to convert the massive amount of chances they are creating. This criticism again happened against Monchengladbach as Leeds missed a plethora of chances and hit the bar on numerous occasions.

However, in my opinion, the fact that we are creating the chances is a massive positive. Last season was a great success under Garry Monk — we can’t really deny that — but at times I felt we should have expressed ourselves more and created more chances during the games where we were in control.

During the preseason, I have seen the team start to address this, and at this stage, this is more important - the goals will come. We dominated a top side and limited their creativity and completely ran them ragged for the majority of the game. When the creativity and goal scoring start to merge, Leeds will be a genuine threat this season.

Wing backs

Luke Ayling took his goal very well, but what impressed me the most was how Christiansen has utilised the full backs. I noted after the Guiseley game that we saw Ayling and co. making penetrating runs beyond the wingers into the box.

On Thursday, you could see it again, and the most positive thing was the fact was that you could see that players were implementing the idea better. The full backs look like they will be a major part of our creativity next season.

The full backs also created space for the wingers to deliver the ball, the Monchengladbach defenders were left chasing the attacking full backs which allowed the wingers time to cross the ball.

The importance of preseason games is often underrated. It is not important in terms of the final result, but it allows the players to fully adapt to the coaches tactics and gain fitness which is generally the difference in the first few weeks of the season. MOT.