Has 'inventive' Stoke boss Nathan Jones got another surprise up his sleeve for Marcelo Bielsa and Leeds United, after Saturday humiliation?

The Whites' Argentine head coach praised his opposite number in January, before the two sides met at the bet365 Stadium.

"Head coaches express themselves through the games of their teams," said Bielsa.

"You have head coaches who give traditional answers with common things, not new things, and you have inventive head coaches.

"I think he is a head coach that has creation. He is not a traditional head coach."

Jones, whose men pulled off a shock 2-1 win, can claim to have proved Bielsa right, on that occasion at least.

He switched from his preferred 4-4-2 diamond formation to three at the back in an attempt to spring a surprise on Bielsa.

"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 ex Hatters manager 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.

“We felt with the threats they’ve got and to give us the best chance to win the match we needed to be tactically right at it and I thought we were.”

On Saturday, Jones went to the well again, and this time it was bone dry.

Having gone with the diamond in all of Stoke's Championship games so far this season, he suddenly switched to a back three again for the visit of Leeds.

It wasn't just a surprise tactical shift, Jones left out some big name players.

Even a man as well prepared as Bielsa would have been hard pressed to predict the Stoke starting line-up.

This time, however, although Bielsa's men took a while to adjust, they eventually took control of the wide areas, dominated possession in their usual way and put Stoke to the sword.

A 3-0 scoreline in the visitors' favour was flattering, not for Leeds but for Stoke.

The Whites enjoyed 65 per cent of the possession and were so good with it, anyone watching without Stoke loyalties will have enjoyed it too.

Leeds almost doubled Stoke's total passes and peppered the Potters' goal, amassing 21 shots, 10 of which were on target.

It was a whitewash, by the team in charcoal and pink.

"Leeds go man-for-man with you all over so what we did was try to do something a little different," he said, of the tactical change.