Derby County 1-4 Leeds United: Two Games
Frank Lampard has perfected the in-game suit, the respectful soundbite, and the pensive touchline stance; as Bielsa beamed kindly at him at full-time, like a vet about to do what's best for Lampard's favourite pet, Frank looked shocked.
For several nights to come, while the tiny mechanical mice that operate the machinery that closes Richard Keogh's eyelids labour at putting him to sleep, if they look into his eyes they will see in each bulging globe reflections like in a kaleidoscope of a Leeds United player called Samuel Saiz Alonso.
And the mice will try in vain with sponges and cloths to remove the shadow of Kemar Roofe from Keogh's waxy, shining forehead, where it has branded his xylophone of wrinkles like the stain on the Turin Shroud.
The close up of a soon to be vanquished warrior as his face reflects the charge of an overwhelming enemy is a cinematic trope, but Keogh and the Derby County defence were unwilling, expendable extras in a movie masterpiece directed by Marcelo Bielsa, eschewing the usual canvas chair and megaphone for an upturned bucket and a paper cup of coffee. Frank Lampard had a few ideas he wanted to contribute to the screenplay, but Bielsa dismissed them with a kind smile and a handshake, as if he was greeting a fan outside the team hotel. A filmmaking friend once described actors as 'bleeding props', and that's all Frank Lampard was to Bielsa's Championship blockbuster.
What Samu Saiz is to the plot of this new movie is wonderful. We said goodbye last season to a peripheral, pissed off prince, but he has come back as Bielsa's tiny king, his romantic lead, around whom all the mechanics of the plot revolve. He takes the ball wherever it is given and advances the story by thirty or forty yards in an instant, insisting on a through ball at the end of it all, or at least on keeping possession; he kept it early on with a clever chip over a defender to Mateusz Klich just so Leeds could keep the ball, and keep the chance of giving it back to Saiz.
It wasn't only Keogh's eyes that Saiz caught, and we should enjoy him in this form before he is constantly man-marked, has his legs broken, or objects strongly again to Welsh people and is sent off in Swansea. Derby tried to curb Saiz by bringing on Bradley Johnson to mark him in the second half, but we know better than Lampard that Johnson's first thoughts are always for scoring that one thunderbastard in a thousand, not for stopping another at play. Saiz looked annoyed by Johnson's presence, but we know that feeling too from when Simon Grayson used to submit his teamsheets, and we learned as Saiz did that having Bradley around is never as bad as it seems.
Although he was the lead, Saiz was only part of the story. Keeping to the shadows like a sailor past his shore leave, Pablo Hernandez was the puppeteer pulling Saiz's strings; he let the little brandy barrel roll through midfield, knocking opponents left and right, then followed in his wake to get the ball and give it, vital but not central. Thomas Christiansen figured this out after a few games last season, moving Saiz to number 10 and using Hernandez as his hype man; but as he has with everything, Bielsa has increased the tempo.
The opening goal was a perfect rap; Derby lost possession far upfield and Saiz tore through them with energetic rhymes; he passed inside to Pablo for an intelligent, patient verse, who gave the mic to Mateusz Klich for his own audacious chorus. Shuffling off the beat, he threw the defenders off the bridge and curled a melody from outside the penalty area into the bottom corner.