“Disappointing” Leeds lose ground in title race: Blackburn Rovers 1-0 Leeds United

National World - LocalTV

Lee Sobot reports from Ewood Park where Leeds lost one-nil against Blackburn.

Transcript

00:01Here from Ewood Park, where we hoped to be reporting on positive news as Leeds United returned back to the top of the championship.

00:09Unfortunately, that wasn't the case and far from it as Daniel Farks-White fell to a very, very disappointing 1-0 defeat.

00:16As I'm recording this, Burnley are playing right this second and we'll obviously wait and see what happens with that one.

00:22But what we do know is that that defeat has left them three points behind Sheffield United,

00:26who we must remember also have had two points doped, so obviously they would be five points better off.

00:30But for that, you could say that's immaterial.

00:32But what it does show is that overall so far this season,

00:35they would actually be on, in terms of football ability anyway, five points better off than Leeds.

00:40So that's a little bit worrying.

00:42But probably the most worrying thing really here was just the performance, to be honest, as the Whites suffered a 1-0 reverse,

00:48which really was quite hard to argue with, I think, in terms of what they deserved.

00:53You could say maybe Leeds deserved a point because they did have quite a lot of chances.

00:56But to be quite honest, so too did Blackburn.

00:58And it just was very disappointing.

01:00And you had 7,500 fans here in the away end.

01:03And their general demeanour at the end was not surprisingly one of much disappointment, I think, really.

01:08And just wanted to see a bit more from their team.

01:10It kind of felt like one of those games where there was nine minutes added time and there was even more than that in the end,

01:16where it just looked like it wasn't happening for Leeds whatsoever.

01:19And in the end, a penalty converted by Todd Cantwell proved the only goal of the game.

01:24And surprising, really, that the player who gave that penalty away was one of the standout players of the season so far.

01:29And Yao Tanaka, a foul on Tyrese Dolan, who was by far Blackburn's best player.

01:34Very, very good young player he is indeed.

01:36Lots of energy, lots of skill. Leeds struggled to deal with him.

01:38They struggled to deal with Cantwell, who was in the groove.

01:40But Dolan burst into the penalty area.

01:43Tanaka sort of, well, basically it was like a barge, really, a shoulder barge,

01:47but too much of a shoulder barge and just took him down.

01:49And the referee thought about it and then pointed to the spot.

01:52And upstep Cantwell, very, very good penalty.

01:54Almost perfect penalty right into the bottom left corner.

01:56Melier went the right way.

01:58Nuts unlucky not to save it, really, but such was the precision that Cantwell put on it.

02:01That was 1-0.

02:03And it has to be said that Leeds were saved by the frame of the goal about 10 minutes before that

02:07from that man, Dolan, who stuck a header against the crossbar.

02:10So Leeds got very, very lucky there as well.

02:12Otherwise, that could have been 2-0 with the penalty.

02:15Yes, they had chances themselves, but just weren't ruthless or clinical enough, really.

02:19And to my eye, the only person who ever looked like scoring for Leeds

02:22was Willy Nonto in the first half anyway.

02:25And, you know, he wasn't able to take his chances.

02:27Pairs in goal made a couple of good saves, but just disappointing, really.

02:31And just Leeds never really got into the groove.

02:33In the end, a triple substitution from Daniel Farka,

02:36probably a little bit too late in the second half.

02:38But it has to be said, the three that came on didn't really do an awful lot themselves either.

02:42I'm trying to think of the chances.

02:43Pascal Stroik had a very good chance with the header from a free kick,

02:46which forced pairs into a good save.

02:48There were other bits and bobs of chances as well,

02:50but nothing particularly like goal misses really wise.

02:54And just, you know, a really disappointing display.

02:57And day and performance all round.

Category

Transcript

Recommended