{"id":549160,"date":"2025-11-04T20:12:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T20:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/549160\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T20:12:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T20:12:22","slug":"what-joe-rodon-said-about-pascal-struijk-as-leeds-united-face-jaka-bijol-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/549160\/","title":{"rendered":"What Joe Rodon said about Pascal Struijk as Leeds United face Jaka Bijol dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Daniel Farke has a decision to make at Leeds when it comes to Pascal Struijk and Jaka Bijol.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An illness saw the Leeds<\/a> No.5 lose his place alongside Joe Rodon<\/a> to the Slovenian for the 2-1 win over West Ham, a position he kept as the Whites suffered a 3-0 defeat away to Brighton on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Jaka Bijol \u2013 albeit not the only one \u2013 looked shaky in that loss, and Daniel Farke<\/a> must consider what was said about Pascal Struijk<\/a> in August 2024 when it comes to selecting his next lineup. <\/p>\n

Joe Rodon has already stressed the importance of having Pascal Struijk alongside him<\/p>\n

After a 0-0 draw at West Brom, the Wales international spoke about just how significant it was for the Dutchman to be back in central defence alongside him.<\/p>\n

Rodon hailed Struijk<\/a>, telling Sky Sports: \u201cThe whole team knows how important Pascal is to us, and he showed (it) there today. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was brilliant. We are delighted to have him back and hopefully we just carry on and push on for the rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE LEEDS UNITED STORIES<\/p>\n

Farke knows how effective Rodon and Struijk are<\/a> together, having said in October 2023: \u201cIn general our defensive performance is why we are in a really good position in the table. Defending well is always a basement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue now for the German is that Bijol cost \u00a315m back in June when arriving from Udinese, and it could severely dent his confidence if he loses his place following that disappointing display at Brighton.<\/p>\n

However, it may also send out the wrong message to Struijk \u2013 who has aimed a dig at Jesse Marsch<\/a> \u2013 if the Slovenia international is allowed to keep his place, potentially infuriating Rodon as well.<\/p>\n

Daniel Farke should stick with what works for Leeds<\/p>\n

There are some areas managers simply cannot afford to tinker with for the sake of it in football.<\/p>\n

\"JoePhoto by Richard Sellers\/Sportsphoto\/Allstar via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The central defensive pairing is arguably most applicable to this point, as it relies on two players gaining an understanding of each other, and knowing they can trust one another.<\/p>\n

With Nottingham Forest next up for Leeds \u2013 a tough test given the quality of Sean Dyche\u2019s squad \u2013 Farke would be wise to revert to his trusted defensive pairing, with Bijol not exactly proving he is a class above Struijk in his two Premier League appearances so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Farke has a decision to make at Leeds when it comes to Pascal Struijk and Jaka Bijol.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,393,4884,742,1860,1991,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-549160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-joe-rodon","12":"tag-leeds","13":"tag-pascal-struijk","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115493257685068830","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}