We all hate Leeds don’t we? Well, historically yes
but based purely on the way they play football this season, most definitely
not. I know it’s been said before they have been a breath of fresh air this
season, surviving comfortably in the first season back in the Premier League,
which would’ve been the aim for a club that I spent about 20 years outside the
top flight due in no small part to the Peter Ridsdale blueprint on how to ruin
a football club.

Without spending a huge amount of money they’ve got back into the top flight
and have performed exceptionally well this season, never looking in serious
danger of being drawn in to the scrap at the bottom. Next season will be more
difficult because teams will know what they are about but that’s for another day
and there is absolutely no danger of them having second season syndrome like
Sheffield United did.

Marcelo Bielsa will certainly be there next season and if I was a betting man,
I would be betting on them being a lot closer to the Europa League places than
they are this season. They lost games at the start of the season because they
went into them a little bit naïvely and I had a phase in the middle where they
looked a bit tired but they certainly seem to have their mojo back at the
moment, as was proven by a thumping 4-0 win at Burnley last time out. It’s a
dangerous game for us because it’s one of the games where if we don’t bring our
fully committed game to the table, will get beat and get beat quite
comfortably.

We got beat quite comfortably 3-0 nil up at Elland Road earlier on in the
season in a game which kind of summed up a lot of what this season has been
about. We played really well for 45 minutes, got a couple of very questionable
decisions off the referee (Nathan Tella penalty decision being overturned and
then not being allowed a quick free-kick when Adams scored) and VAR, had one of
our most important players (Romeu) get injured and then we completely fucking
collapsed and lost 3-0.

Talking of Romeu, it looks like he might be back today if only to make an
appearance off the bench. It looks like Jan Bednarek is also fit so it will be
interesting to see what the starting line-up is both from the point of view of
wondering if Bednarek comes back into the team for Stephens or if Tella and/or
Theo Walcott make it into the starting 11 in place of Liverpool’s Takumi Minamino
or Nathan Redmond.  Talking of Theo – it’s
been announced that he’s agreed a two year deal to sign permanently.  Personally, I see this as a good thing even
though his post-injury form has been poor. 
He showed before the injury that he has more about him than the other
wingers that we have.

Oh yeah, I’m at the ground because I’ve been lucky enough to get a ticket. We
have been given a 5:10 arrival time for the 6 pm kick-off. That’s a pain in the
arse considering I have to work until 5 (officially) but it is what it is. I
think people will in the main put up with this crap for the rest of this season
but 6 pm kick-offs can really get in the fucking bin.

So, how different would be match day experience be?  Well, we parked up in Woolston and walked
across the Itchen Bridge, had a quick chorus of “Swing Lowe” and arrived at the
corner by the Megastore and assumed I could go left and behind the Chapel and
around the ground to the Kingsland.  I
was met by a steward and told that as I was entering by the purple gate and we’d
would have to walk right past the stadium the other way.  No problem – off we go round to the ticket
office and another steward.  No dice here
either – when the 1^st steward said “walk round the ground”, he
actually meant “walk round the gasholders”. 
So right the way up Britannia Road turn left towards Northam, up the
road and back across the bridge over the railway line and into the ground that
way. Fucking hell. Didn’t say anything about that on the ticket. Once in the
ground all is fine and sat just past the halfway line in the Kingsland stand.
It’s good to be back. Leeds are warming up in front of us and I was watching,
thinking that I didn’t know who hardly any of these players were at the start
of the season but now I recognise everyone. Their warm-up looks very intense as
you’d expect, given the energy levels that Bielsa seems to have instilled in
them.

The team news is good on one hand and not so good on another. Nathan Tella is
given a deserved start and Theo Walcott is also in the team with the two
players being left out being Redmond and Minamino.  Unfortunately, Danny Ings is not fit to start
so has been replaced by Djenepo who has not had a decent game for quite a long
time.

As the players come out, there’s a very loud rendition of “Oh when the Saints”
from the 8000 or so in the ground. It’s a good moment.

Saint start again well and are playing their way through Leeds quite well. A JWP
freekick from the right hand side is cleared and eventually Djenepo gives the
ball to Armstrong who runs at Cooper in the inside left channel, past him to
the by-line before chipping the ball up for Scotland’s Euro 2020 striker Che
Adams, to head goalwards but Casilla claws it away quite comfortably

Saints continue to play their way through Leeds press. Their defensive set up
is all about 1v1 marking, so if you do get past one man someone else has to
come off of their player in order to close you down which means that in theory,
once you beat one player, you should be able to carry on. The trouble is with
this is that if you do lose the ball you are very open to the counter-attack
and this is what happens when Stephens wanders forward with it, gets to the
edge of the Leeds area and then has no idea what to do with it. Leeds break
quickly, cross into the box Rodrigo heads down and Dallas shanks a shot wide.
It’s a warning most definitely.

Some good combination play by Walcott and Armstrong leads to Tella finding
Adams and his first time shot is heading to the bottom corner but Casilla gets
down well to push it past the post. To be fair, Che didn’t get a proper
connection on it but it’s a decent effort none the less

Half-time And we’ve been decent so far. I can’t help but think that Bielsa will
tighten Leeds up in the second half but hopefully Danny Ings will come on at
some point and give us the cutting edge we need. Oh, here are the players and
here is Danny Ings and unfortunately, it looks like Che Adams has gone off.

Saints again start the second-half well and on the front foot and win a free
kit 35 yards out. It’s right on the edge of what you would call JWP territory
but he produces a brilliant effort which just doesn’t dip quite enough and it pings
off the bar and over.

Leeds seem to be playing with more intent this half and Bamford has a blast
from close range which McCarthy blocks. Their next attack is a break and
Harrison hits a long ball at the top and Vestergaard has totally got himself in
the wrong position, having to turn and chase Bamford who is clean through.
Bamford goes to go round McCarthy who catches him but to his eternal credit,
Bamford stays on his feet but the product of his honesty is of course that the
shit referee and the shit VAR don’t give him the penalty that he should’ve got.
Bielsa, of course, brings something new to management and it’s quite amusing
watching him arguing with the fourth official through his interpreter.  The interpreter is doing his best to conjure
up the facial expressions that an angry manager usually comes up with on the
sidelines.

This is actually a really entertaining game with JWP firing one in from the
edge of the box which causes all sorts of mayhem but Leeds eventually clear and
then we’re back at the other end with a Bamford shot being cleared from in
front of the goal by Stephens and then Alioski drilling it straight at the
scrambling McCarthy.

With 20 minutes left to go, Ralph decides to take off the admittedly fading Tella
and bring on Nathan Redmond. No, I can’t explain it either.

Leeds build up again and Rodrigo picks up on the right hand side and chips are
lovely ball over the top of Vestergaard to Bamford who has stolen in. Time
seems to stand still and McCarthy looks like the whistle has already gone as
Bamford waves the outside of his left foot at it and post it through the
goalkeepers legs and into the net.  Time
stops. It’s really fucking weird as there is absolute silence in the ground
apart from the Leeds players making some noise. 
What a shit goal.  It’ll be
interesting to see on a replay when I get home but that looked absolutely
fucking dreadful from a defensive and goalkeeping point of view.

All of a sudden, Saints look absolutely done and you can tell exactly how the
rest of the game is going to go. Ralph decides that a player who is never ever
scored in Diallo, is what’s needed at this point and he comes on in place of Walcott.
Leeds have the ball in the net again as they play the way through and Bamford pulls
it back to Raphinha, who slots in but Bamford as well offside this time.

As we arrive near the 90th minute we do have a brief flurry with Armstrong finding
Redmond in the inside right position and he cuts inside Cooper before shanking
the shot into the side netting with his left foot. Danny Ings has a go on the
turn from the edge of the box and because it’s Danny Ings we all get excited
until we realised that the ball has hit the advertising board about 20 yards
wide of goal.

There is another chance as Leeds put in some panicky challenges with Dallas
needlessly fouling KWP. JWP’s delivery pings around a bit and eventually falls
to Stephens 6 yards out but all he can do is headed straight to the goalkeeper.
Casilla a superbly drills it out to Raphinha – one pass to Roberts, on to Bamford,
whose shot is parried by McCarthy and Roberts rolls into the net. Game over.

Well that was disappointing. The second goal made the score a slightly
flattering one for Leeds but overall we can’t complain about getting beat. We
were the better side in the 1^st half and didn’t take our chances and
they were the better side in the second and took the chances that came their way.
I think I wrote the same about the game at Elland Road earlier on in the season
and that’s the problem.

The key moment of course is the first goal which is a joke. Defenders ball
watching and a goalkeeper who is ignoring everything he’s been taught this
season and not playing to the whistle and not really making any sort of effort
to stop Bamford poking into the net. The offside was not given and that’s all
there is to it.  It’s one of those
offsides where if you draw the line from a different place on Bamford‘s arm
then he is offside but to be honest, the guy deserves a break for staying on
his feet earlier in the half when McCarthy tagged him. That’s a penalty all day
long and it wasn’t given because he was honest and stayed on his feet. Why a
referee and VAR can’t give that as a penalty even though Bamford hasn’t hit the
deck, is absolutely fucking ridiculous. I don’t think VAR has even looked at it
because the player hasn’t hit the deck. It really is an absurd system.

From about the hour mark onwards, the chances of us scoring got less and less.
The second half substitutions were perplexing to say the least. I remember
Ralph a while ago saying that the substitutes and they made the team worse.
That was after the game when he last brought on Redmond as a substitute and it
happened again today. Tella’s enthusiasm and energy went off and Redmond came
on. With 10 minutes to go and needing a goal, we took off an attacking winger
in Walcott, and brought on the defensive midfielder in Diallo and the net
result of that is, you have one less player on the pitch who is likely to
create or score a goal. It was not a surprise when Leeds killed the game with
the second goal.

I wrote the following after the Elland Road game “They adapted – maybe it was via Bielsa but it sounded like
they worked it out themselves.  I’m increasingly coming to the opinion that Saints
are very well drilled and know what to do until they have to start thinking for
themselves and thinking on their feet when we don’t have any fucking answers.”

We had lots of space to create openings in the first half as we played through
Leeds very easily but there seem to be no link between midfield and attack and
we didn’t work their goalkeeper, who has a reputation for being a complete
clown. In the second half, Leeds tightened up because they and their manager
adapted and we had no answers and as the game went on we created less and less.
  Leeds had a strange tactical shape in
the first half with three defenders and three midfielders are basically four
strikers. The three midfielders were Phillips in the middle with Dallas and Alioski
playing really wide so consequently, Phillips was virtually there only central
midfielder and once we got past the four attackers who weren’t pressing that
well, we could take Phillips out with one pass. 
We didn’t take advantage of this, either because of the movement of the
strikers or the pass through from the midfield.

The substitutions – I do not understand it.  Apparently Adams had a knock so I get that one but on 70 mins, Redmond on for Tella.  What was the point of that?  Redmond has been awful recently and we have Obafemi and N’Lundulu, two natural strikers on the bench.  That 20 mins should have gone to one of those guys.  As for bringing on a defensive midfielder on 85 minutes?  What are we trying to do – protect a 1-0 defeat?  I get that’s it’s to move Armstrong forward but even so, it didn’t make much sense and didn’t work.  We would have been better off just pushing Walcott up front with Redmond and Ings and going 4-3-3.

Of the players today, I thought JWP showed why he deserved the player of the
season award, with another excellent performance. Stuart Armstrong again played
well in the centre of midfield but that missing link to the attack always seems
to be present when he is restricted in his running forward. Che did well in the
first half of picked up a knock which meant I had to go off at half time and
there was some promising energetic stuff from Nathan Tella but he is not a 90
minute player as yet. There were some great stuff at the back from Vestergaard
and Salisu, particularly in the first half but Vestergaard in particular seems
to be getting dragged out of position more and more as the game went on and
getting into that no mans land where he has to turn and run back.

One last game in this strangest of seasons and a trip to the strangest football
ground of all at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford. We are always shit there.