Hull City           3  (Kamara 5, 89, Joao Pedro 81)

Leeds United   3 (Tanaka 46, James 62, Piroe 72)) 

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4th January, 2025, EFL Championship.

24,463.

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​​I’m fast coming to the conclusion that there is only one Championship side that can possibly prevent Leeds United from winning promotion… it’s Leeds United.

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It is often said that our team is inexperienced, full of youngsters and not accustomed to the cut and thrust and pressure of Championship football. That may or may not be right – I actually think we do have plenty of experience in the side with so many international players, albeit perhaps not too much experience of the Championship. What is undeniable though is that, halfway through the season we appear to have learned nothing about end of game management  and we continue to throw points away at the death. We simply have to learn and learn quickly how to close out a game.

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Let’s first give Hull some credit – they were good for 45 minutes, possibly because this was ‘their cup final’ against Yorkshire rivals, possibly because they were buoyed by the early goal, or possibly because they realise they have less than half a season now to avoid a painful drop into League One. Whatever it was, Hull came out fighting while we looked, not for the first time this season, slow out of the blocks and unfocussed, with our heads maybe still in the dressing room! A simple curling ball caught Max Wober the wrong side of his man, Kamara was through one-on –one v a stop-start, shall I, shan’t I Meslier and Kamara produced a perfect lobbed finish. Hull could have, maybe should have got a second just before the break too when the ball smacked the righthand post from Regan Slater with Meslier scrambling again; it looked easier to score and was a let off for Leeds. There were other good chances for the Tigers too but few worth the name for Leeds. If it was boxing, Hull won the first half on points .

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Leeds needed a goal early in the second half to get us going and we got it. And what a goal it was too. Ao Tanaka collected the ball on the left, cut inside, gave the keeper the eye and curled a perfect shot into the far corner from twenty yards out! Who knew he could do that? His goal, plus his all-round play, was enough for me to have him down as my MOTM.

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Leeds then bombed forward as if suddenly believing we could win this game and Dan James was inches away from flicking the ball in at the back post from a Brenden Aaronson cross. Just after the hour mark Leeds grabbed the lead. Wober found Solomon on the left, he skirted around Lewie Coyle leaving the former Leeds man on his backside before hitting the ball across the face of goal. A slight deflection bamboozled Ivor Pandur who let the ball go past and Jayden Bogle collected beyond the back post. Jayden cut it back first time and Dan James stabbed it home. The third and seemingly clinching goal came ten minutes later courtesy of the home keeper. He stroked the ball too hard to find his own man and instead found Joel Piroe. Joel took a couple of touches and then, with three defenders and the keeper between him and glory he simply lashed a left foot strike inside the far post. Joel is far and away our best finisher and has to start every game despite his lack of ‘legs’ IMHO. Cue delirium in the Leeds sections.

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We continued to push forward and looked likely to score more but then it all went pear-shaped. There were only ten minutes to go – we just needed to be error free, controlled and manage the game to a 3 – 1 win. But no, we give away a needless free kick on the a Hull right, it found a Hull head higher than our own and the ball ballooned towards the Leeds crossbar. 99 goalkeepers out of a 100 would have touched it safely over the bar with one glove, the risk-free option.  In fact, if you watch the replay carefully you will see that had Illan left it alone, it would have dropped over the bar, he actually clawed it back into play! So our keeper decided to try to palm the ball down at his feet and, inevitably a Hull striker was there; Joao Pedro poked the ball into the net. Meslier is just not improving and always seems to have a sloppy moment like this in his locker. He just doesn’t do what most keepers would do in any particular situation and he never looks confident to me. It seems to me that he doesn’t have a goalkeeper’s brain, the ability to quickly  analyse tricky situations and find the best solution. I don’t think he’d be any good on the Crystal maze for example! Some folk point to the number of clean sheets we achieve and suggest it’s down to Illan but it isn’t. The stats showing how he makes fewer saves than most keepers against shots faced is the more telling statistic; of course we’ll have plenty of clean sheets when we dominate the possession so much and so often and give away so few chances. You could see in the body language of our players just how much that mistake hurt. It was Sunderland all over again.

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We can’t put the whole responsibility for this failure to bring home the three points on Illan alone though – Dan James should have put us 4 – 2 to the good moments later when he found himself in the same situation as Kamara did for that opening goal; one-on-one with a bouncing ball and the keeper charging at him. Maybe Illan could learn a bit by studying the way Pandur totally committed to the task and got lucky as his head met Dan’s goal bound effort. You make your own luck.

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But still we ought to have seen the game out. We were into the 89th minute facing a left wing corner but Meslier and Wober between them failed to deal with It, probably getting in each -others way. The ball fell to Kamara again,  and he somehow threaded the ball through a crowded penalty area into the net. Two vital points wasted again.

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There is no doubt that Leeds are the best side in the Championship, have the best squad, and there are so many poor teams that we can and generally do beat . Only the top four look likely to stay in the race for the two automatic promotion places. But we are wasting points while our three rivals generally seem more ‘professional’ in the way they manage their games. Having said that, until today we have usually done what is expected this season, especially in beating the poor, bottom half teams. We’d already beaten all of the current bottom ten teams this season at least once with the sole exception of that opening day game against Pompey. Now we add this Hull City away game to that very short list and of course both the games we failed to win ended 3 - 3 - it's a funny old game ain't it?

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So, all is not lost, we remain top, albeit now by only a point when it ought to still be three. We’ve got two winnable looking home games to come next in Sheffield Wednesday and Norwich although we need to expect a tougher game against those two top half teams. The day before we face the Owls, Burnley host Sunderland so that’s another chance to stretch the top four and then at the end of the month of course we go to Burnley. Lots of twists and turns to come BUT we have to cut out the daft mistakes, and start to be a bit more ruthless in getting over the line.

Leeds United eh, finding the most difficult path possible at every turn. Let's have some fun now in the FA Cup, treat it as a bit of light relief and maybe get ourselves a plum 4th round tie and not more cup humiliation!