Yesterday felt like a loss for Leeds United but booing the players is not the answer

22 Sep 2019 10:01 am, by YorkshireSquare


Walking out of Elland road yesterday afternoon it felt like we had lost. Same old story first half, Leeds dominated possession and territory, Derby hardly had a look in. Chances were a plenty but we converted jut the one, a narrow lead at half time when in reality we should have been walking it. The second half started ok, Bamford hit the post but after the hour mark things changed. Leeds sat back, Derby dominated the ball, Richard Keogh controlling the game. The penalty came somewhat against the run of play but it was out chance to seal the win. After the miss the equaliser felt inevitable, conceding late goals at home feels inevitable at the moment.

Everyone in the ground can feel it coming, 35,000 plus getting jittery in the crowd and eleven on the pitch. Teams are always going to get one chance, even when a team scores four, five or six quite often the opposition still gets one, it just doesn't matter so much when you still get the win, like Bristol's goal to make it three one made us a bit jittery but was ultimately meaningless. The performances at home are in themselves not the problem, we’ve just got to stick it in the back of the net. Swansea, Forest and Derby could all have gone home having lost three or four nil and wouldn't have had the right to complain.

Eight matches played so far this season and we have completely dominated seven of them (The only one we didn't totally dominate was Barnsley), likely racking up 100+ attempts at goal in those games and similarly probably have conceded a total of less than 10 shots on target against us in those seven matches. It just needs something to click in the final third and we would romp the league. Pep Guardiola had similar problems but he had the likes of Messi (and others) at Barca, Robben, Ribiery etc at Bayern and Aguero, DeBruyne and others at City. We don't have that quality in the final third, we have championship players.



We arguably have better attacking options on our bench but equally they lessen the whole structure of the team. It is a fine balancing act but hopefully as our players build up the understanding amongst each other things will fall into place. Eddie and Costa are great attacking options and have shown against Brentford and Barnsley that they can be great weapons to have when the game is nil nil and we are trying to get the winner, however when we are in front subs hasn't seemed to have worked as well. What you gain in one sense, more attacking threat, you lose by becoming more open all over the pitch and allowing the opposition more time all over the pitch as the pressing isn't as effective.

Away from home the big difference is we’ve had more space and have been scoring more than one. Bristol three up, Stoke three up, Wigan two up and as such the only game that wasn't in the bag before the substitutions were made was the Barnsley one. If we'd have gone two goals up in any of the home games we'd have won them. A lot of what we do is great. Even during the O'Leary days we didn't dominate matches in the same way we do now. Sooner or later some team is going to get absolutely thrashed by us and the thing is it doesn't matter who they are because they could be the second best team in the division but we make every team look poor against us.



While Saturday was frustrating, booing the players is not the answer. They played some great football, they absolutely snuffed out the opposition. Derby didn't have a touch in our box in the opening hour, we were relentless in possession and out of possession, Derby didn't have a clue. They could do nothing as we missed our chances, they could have six nil down, they weren't even in the contest for the first hour and the only thing that let them be in the contest was our finishing.

Despite the results, much better to be a Leeds fan than a Derby or Swansea fan. They are teams going nowhere and even if one of them got promoted they would flounder in the Premier League. We are still top, we have a style and a swagger that means we can compete against the best and whilst at times results are frustrating we are definitely heading in the right direction and playing the right way.


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