Leeds United v Aston Villa | 23rd November 2025 | Elland Road
As the last first anniversary this weekend passes since my husband’s death when we said our final goodbyes and celebrated his life in pure Leeds United style with a white out of snow, it’s been another emotional few days. A big thank you to everyone for their support which as always is greatly appreciated. As we did last year when we came home from our celebrations, my eldest three granddaughters helped me put my Christmas Tree up as we use this time to keep happy memories going. As the emotions were going to overwhelm me, I realised I had to sort out meeting fans today with their Billy Bremner badge orders so that worked and took my mind off things. There has been great support for these badges, and it was good to meet up with so many of you today. All profits from the badge sales are going towards the statue of Billy in his hometown of Raploch, Stirling. We are also in the process of launching our raffle which has some great prizes on offer with again all profits going to the statue fund. Please support our efforts by buying tickets, retweeting or sharing on social media channels when this gets posted shortly and thank you in advance for your help.
It was nice catching up with those of you who have watched the Paris 75 documentary, thank you for the feedback and it is good to see how greatly received it has been. Yes, it is emotional there is no doubt about that as I have cried at all three shows I’ve been to so far. I have also been invited to take part in a Q&A with the fans in the film (including me) at the Hyde Park Picture House on 21st December, so will look forward to seeing those of you there as the venue sold out within a few days of going on sale.
With the international break over once again, I was hoping the euphoria from our Welsh players would impact on our team’s performance today. After our defeat at Forest, I had that resigned feeling again that I couldn’t see a way forward, but I’d tried to have a positive mental attitude today. Getting a good result would make such a big difference, failing that could make things untenable.
To me it was a tale of two halves today. Leeds played really well in the first half taking an early lead but that wasn’t without VAR having a say before allowing the goal. We weren’t letting Villa have time on the ball, closing them down and chasing everything which was good to see. Villa did get the ball in the net but either the whistle blew first, or the linesman put his flag up as they hit a low shot that went past Perri. Sadly, my short-term memory is rubbish, and I have to see things again to reinforce what happened. They did have one shot that whistled past the side of the post which was too close for comfort. The referee was very poor in pulling Villa up for fouls and one on Bogle after the ball had gone, should have seen a yellow card for me. Unfortunately for us it was Bogle who ended up the book not long after, but it was a tame connection in comparison. We did have a shot from Aaronson on target, but it was good to get to half time with that single goal between us.
Within two minutes of the start of the second half, Villa had equalised when their cross to the middle, saw their man who was grappling with Bogle, stick his foot out and toe end the ball past Perri. From then on it put us on the backfoot as we started to see Aaronson being bullied off the ball. He was getting involved but couldn’t keep the ball as the crowd made their feelings known shouting for Dan James to come on. When Farke did make his subs, he stunned the ground into silence when he took Tanaka and Nmecha off. To me it killed any atmosphere dead as we could see what was going to happen next. With Villa’s free kick, one of the lads behind me said you know that’s going in which it did. With Perri too far over to the right of the goal, despite our wall, we showed them too much space which we were punished for. Just as we thought we were down and out, it looked like we’d got an instant response when James equalised for us. Sadly, VAR disallowed it as Calvert-Lewin coming into the goal handled the ball before it crossed the line. Struijk saw the keeper make a great save when it looked like the ball was heading into the net. At the end of the game, it wasn’t as toxic as I expected it to be but there were still plenty of boos as the team came round. Farke was at the far side of the team as some chanted, “You don’t know what you’re doing”.
As we headed back to Billy’s statue, the heavens had opened once again giving us a damp cold bone chilling miserable ending to what had started out as a chance to redeem ourselves. Although I feel resigned to things, I don’t agree with writing us off at any game before a ball has been kicked. I know we are at Man City next week, but if you already think you are beaten before you step out on the pitch you might as well not bother going. What about going out and fighting to get something from the game? It may look impossible on paper, but it should not be a foregone conclusion. I do feel Farke has to take some blame because although it looked like we’d changed things in the first half, we didn’t have the stamina for the second half and the subs made, killed the game.
I’ve no idea what will happen going forward as the shouts for Farke to go become louder, but there are no guarantees we’d get a replacement right either.
I’ll sleep on things and then they never look as bad, see you next week, LUFC – Marching on Together!
Read all Heidi’s blogs at followmeandleedsunited.co.uk
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Leeds lost the game 2-1 despite taking an early lead with a goal from Nmecha (8).
Team: Perri, Ampadu, Rodon, Stach, Bogle, Gudmundsson, Nmecha, Longstaff, Okafor, Aaronson, Struijk
Subs: Tanaka for Stach (injured 23), Calvert-Lewin for Tanaka (71), James for Nmecha (71), Gnonto for Okafor (80), Piroe for Aaronson (80)
Subs not used: Darlow, Gruev, Justin, Bijol.
Attendance: 36,819 (3,000 Villa Fans)
Referee: Robert Jones
Booked: Bogle, Tanaka, Ampadu, Struijk, Gnonto
