| Pos. 1st (40pts) | SATURDAY 30 NOVEMBER 2019 | Pos. 20th (17pts) | ||
| Leeds | 4-0 | Boro | ||
| Bamford (3) Klich (45+3, 73) Helder Costa (67) |
69% 16(10) 4 11 |
POSSESSION SHOTS (on target) CORNERS FOULS |
39% 7(1) 1 19 |
|
Boro battered back to the future
After the aquatic display on Wednesday night and a much-needed victory Boro took the relatively short trip down the A1 to Leeds in a non-Derby Derby. Unfortunately for Boro their list of wounded and walking wounded grew significantly this week with Randolph, Gestede, Friend, Shotton and Browne ruled out already and Dijksteel seemingly requiring a cartilage operation. There were also fears that McNair and Assombalonga may be added along with the suspended Johnson. The good news was that Saville had served his suspension and was back available and as much as that news would undoubtedly split Boro supporters views a two legged professional with experience is worth its weight in Gold for Woodgate right now albeit maybe not £7m worth of Gold.
Whites Manager Bielsa had a few concerns of his own as they hoped to leap frog West Brom this afternoon to go back to the top of the Championship. Tyler Roberts was definitely out for the Dirties but with Helder Costa his likely replacement it was hard to feel sympathy especially when contrasted with the squad resources Gibson has left Woodgate to work with. Eddie Nketiah was also likely to miss out as he was reportedly just short of match fitness after an abdominal injury along with ex Boro man Forshaw with an ongoing hip problem.
The Ref for this afternoon’s encounter was a certain Keith Stroud, he who sent off Ayala at home to Preston last year and effectively punctured our Play Off ambitions. I use the word “ambitions” creatively because with Pulis in charge it certainly wouldn’t have been ambitious had we made it but who knows what could have happened over three games.
It was a bright, sunny but freezing Saturday and that was the only ray of pre kick off sunshine for Woodgate as news that Coulson had been added to the injury or at least missing list. Bola resumed the role for which he was PowerPointed for at LB and looking like we were perhaps going to go with a back four with Patrick Reading included on the bench. Saville returned from his enforced absence while McNair and Assombalonga were both fit enough to start although many of us had a degree of scepticism regarding just how fit they really were. Leeds had brought in Costa as suspected with Eddie Nketiah making their bench.
Boro actually lined up with three at the back with McNair on the right alongside Ayala and Fry with Howson and Bola as wing backs. Ayling tested the Boro defence advancing from RB and unleashed a shot that went past Pears going wide as an early warning in the opening seconds. Leeds then went down the left with Harrison playing in Bamford, his effort palmed away by Pears and then despite Bola’s attempt to clear it went straight to a white shirt and a cut back cross ended with a horizontal Paddy diving low and as we know he doesn’t miss with those chances. Oh, the irony of Harrison skinning Howson and setting up Bamford to put Leeds one up. Leeds had started at 100mph and looked to continue where they had left off after the restart. A Bola backwards pass played into the path of Bamford who unleashed a volley at Aynsley Pears. Less than five minutes had gone and Bola had already displayed those awareness and positional issues from earlier in the season.
Another left footed Ayling shot nearly put Leeds two up with white shirts everywhere and anywhere, moving with freedom and energetic passing with high tempo. Boro looked shell shocked and devoid of confidence, belief, formation, shape and tactics. Ayala tried to play a ball out and had to concede possession as there was nobody in a Red Shirt moving, running or creating openings for him. Just ten minutes gone and Boro had looked totally out of their depth. Kalvin Phillips was pulling strings for Leeds with nothing in reply. Saville started the first Boro assault on twelve minutes with Britt for support and then Lewis Wing doing what he has done all season now and ending the sortie by forlornly blasted it well wide of the target.
On fifteen minutes Boro won a Free Kick which was an opportunity to catch breath and maybe clear heads but in all likelihood we were out of this as a competition already, had it been in a Boxing ring the Ref would have stopped it such was the humiliating pummelling we were receiving with two of our cast offs the architects of our downfall. It was like a group of robed Hari Krishna bell ringers against a well drilled division of German Stormtroopers backed up with Panzers. This was reminiscent of the Murdoch and Maddren eras.
Twenty minutes had gone and Paddy blatantly handled to get past Pears and it seemed obvious to everyone in the LS11 Post Code but not to Keith Stroud. Three minutes later and the Ref did actually book Bamford, whether he saw anything or he had a message in his ear piece is questionable as it seemed a very long delay but my confirmation bias against the Official had made my mind up already. Another big decision happened immediately afterwards when Phillips then wiped out Dael Fry in what looked like a clear straight red but Stroud only showed him a yellow. These bookings showed the intent that Leeds had started with but with twenty-five minutes now gone was there feint hope that maybe Boro could see some cracks developing in the Leeds make up?
Paddy McNair was next to enter the Refs book for a challenge on twenty-eight minutes. Boro were starting to get back into the game but Leeds looked ruthless every time they went forward. Fry drove forward from defence with Bamford in close attention and was felled by Costa for a pressure relieving free kick to Boro. Tavernier launched it into the Leeds box but was dealt with by Ayling and Harrison broke for Leeds and the Boro were back defending just as they had been all game. The initial frantic intensity may have eased off but only marginally as Leeds still dominated possession. Yet another Leeds break was started by Fletcher limply losing the ball and somehow Boro managed to keep the Leeds attack out with some very desperate defending. Boro broke out, counter attacked but McNair ended any real threat with a ball that was more suitable for the sport with the egg-shaped ball.
With five minutes remaining of the first half Bamford was rolling around claiming that Ayala had elbowed him in the face in a pantomime act that has seemingly become part of his game plan since he arrived at Elland Road. No doubt one day he will be elbowed and with full force if he keeps this behaviour going as the travelling army made their opinions known about what they thought of him. That early Leeds swagger and domination was becoming a bit ugly but Boro were too busy orchestrating their own downfall, McNair and Wing had been wasteful, Bola looked a liability and Fletcher was back to being lightweight. Bamford again got in behind Bola and was unlucky not to add a second for Leeds and it again went out for a corner which was momentarily cleared and just as the danger was building once more it was Fletcher who tackled to win back possession but his ball to Bola failed to remotely make the intended target.
A Boro attack late on in the half was wasted as Tav lost possession which was an ongoing feature of the game for the visitors, too lightweight and soft with little grit and no endeavour. A minute later Tav lost out to Jack Harrison who he then tugged back to concede a free kick on the edge of the Leeds box in injury time. Bamford broke quickly after the restart collecting the long ball Free Kick cleverly squaring it to Klich and with Ayala closing down it deflected off him into the back of Pears’s net. It was no more than Leeds had deserved as they had simply destroyed us in the early stages and whenever we started to make some inroads, we were wasteful and lacked bravery, pulling out of tackles and just far too soft and consequently lacking belief and impetus.
No changes at Half time mainly because Leeds were winning with ease and Woodgate’s cupboard was bare. Two nil down and Boro looked to be in damage limitation mode with scant resources to offer any kind of threat as Steve Gibson’s new vision was exposed on the Elland Road turf with its new transition pants around its ankles.
A half volley from Harrison was destined to make it three after a cross wasn’t cut out but Pears was equal to it fortunately. A second later a side footed shot from Klich just went over the Boro Crossbar and so the second half had started the way the first half had finished with Leeds dominant, keeping possession and Boro just making up the numbers. In the fifty first minute we managed to get the ball up the pitch and we actually won a corner, our first corner, imagine that, so in it came but it was volleyed into somewhere near Wakefield by Dani Ayala, sighs all round, Typical Boro! The Home fans chorused an enquiry as to what exactly was that effort supposed to be.
Wing then gifted Hernandez feeding Bamford which McNair managed to cut out, more powder puff football from Boro cheaply giving away possession yet again. The Elland Road atmosphere had now entered Festival levels of celebrations as the Home fans sensed that this Boro side were a spent force with absolutely nothing to offer. The hope amongst the travelling army was for either a miracle or at best avoiding a cricket score as Bamford broke through (stop me if you’ve read that before in this report) after a Dallas ball had found him but McNair once again saved Boro blushes.
It was humiliating to watch so what it must have felt like to play in or observe from the bench was anybody’s guess and yet there were still thirty-five minutes left to play out. It could only get worse, resembling the Alamo, men against boys, attack v. defence, organised structure v. clueless chaos. A Boro Free Kick won by Fletcher needed a top class delivery and with it an aggressive Boro assault. McNair sent it in and Ayala went up but Ayling cleared which was the story of the afternoon. Leeds were now lining up to take pot shots, Dallas, Bamford, Hernandez all teasing, toying and playing with what comprised of a shabby, bedraggled patched up defensive back line. Our defence was reminiscent of those old black and white news reels from WWI with troops trudging wearily through muddy roads, bandaged, exhausted, many with bandaged heads, crutches and limbless comrades in carts.
How it was still two nil was only down to profligate finishing by Leeds and an almost indifferent attitude towards putting Boro to the sword not unlike a cat toying with a mouse just before the kill comes. Lewis Wing cheaply lost possession again and an almost comedic attack from Leeds saw Costa dance through a series of confused feeble challenges which would have been an insult to biscuit selling Brownies to blast the ball past Pears to make it three nil. Apologies to any offended Brownies reading this, I know you are made of stronger stuff.
In response Woodgate brought Ben Liddle on for a debut for no other reason than to let him get some game time. It would have been beyond ridiculous to have expected the lad to make any difference but he had absolutely nothing to lose. A Free Kick on the corner of the Leeds 18 yard box was accompanied by the Leeds fans asking Woody to give them a wave. The Free Kick was delivered in low by Tav for Casillas to simply and too easily drop onto it and smother the “threat”. That may have counted as our first attempt on target so it wasn’t all bad and at least Mrs Casillas won’t have to wash his kit for next week.
Meantime Leeds had cleared it with Cooper back up the Boro end and in so doing, won a corner that was taken quickly and after a couple of unmarked one two’s, bang! It was four nil as Klich had laid out his beach towel, applied the sun lotion, placed the Ray Bans delicately on the end of his nose and teased the top far hand corner of the Boro net with a brilliant curved screamer from the edge of the Boro box. Howson took his frustrations out in a tackle to earn a yellow card but meanwhile Britt had seen enough and was sat Juninho style on the Leeds turf knowing his race was run and hobbled off for Tyrone O’Neil to make another Boro debut, from Darlo to Elland Road in just a few weeks.
Bamford then made way, his job truly and consummately done with just over ten minutes remaining for Nketiah to commence his injury comeback in the easiest of situations. The Leeds fans gave him a great ovation whilst the Travelling Army were more Pulisesque in their displeasure clearly siding with the spin of the time. Pears had to pull off a great save to limit the damage to a corner which ended with an Alioski (who had just come on for Costa) shot cleared by newbie Striker O’Neil back defending. Bielsa then made another Substitution which by now I had lost interest in who came on and who went off as the humiliation had now reached a level of total indifference not unlike that of our Chairman some time ago.
Five minutes remaining and it was difficult to watch, painful to bear and this time a George Saville shot earned three points or at least would have done had it been different shaped posts. Klich nearly added a fifth but for McNair getting in another desperate challenge. We, or at least some of us knew it was going to happen at some stage, the summer penny pinching with a cheap Coaching set up couldn’t compete at this level.
Woodgate brought on Walker for Fletcher with four minutes left just to run the clock down and I suspect a deliberate point aimed at his “supportive” Chairman and an anticipation of “Keyboard warrior” feedback. Finally, the purgatory was ended and the ritual stripping and exposure of Budget Boro was complete. Outclassed in every single department with very little to gain comfort or succour from. “It is what it is” as Mogga would have no doubt said as Steve Gibson now clearly marches us back from whence we came. There was no MOM, it was just a case of some were not as bad as others. There did however seem to be extra security around the Boro team bus in the car park I can only presume it was to ensure that Woodgate was not still under it.