Middlesbrough      0 

Leeds United         1 (James 2)

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8th ​April, 2025, EFL Championship.

28,729.

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How do you sum up that game? With great difficulty! Usually, a team comes out of a game and it’s a one-dimensional summary, “We were poor”, “we looked up for it”, “the team lacked fight”, “we were lucky” or “we were unlucky”. We all know the usual taglines that can summarise a 90-minute performance.

Last night at Middlesbrough we had a bit of everything and, at the end of it, it’s hard to know whether we played well or badly! I suspect the truth is, like the Curate’s egg, we were good in parts. But let’s not get carried away by thinking that a win at Boro means we played the perfect game or that we have suddenly re-found our early-season form; it was far from perfect.

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It started perfectly of course, with Dan James nipping in to score his 12th of the season following a slide-rule accurate pass through the inside left channel by Junior Firpo to Manor Solomon, who then supplied a near-perfect low cross along the line of the six-yard box. Dan was quick-witted enough to get his boot to the ball before his marker and Leeds were ahead in this most crucial of crucial games.

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If that wasn’t enough to get the Leeds fans dreaming of the Premier League again after the recent regular nightmares, then a goal by Millwall at Bramall Lane a few minutes later certainly was. Two goals, both going in our favour so early in the night, was both encouraging and exciting but, at the same time, potentially, and knowing how easy it would be for events to turn against us, also nerve-rackingly  teasing.

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The rest of the game proved to show just how much luck plays a part in this beautiful game we all love. On the one hand, Leeds could easily have run out 3 – 0 winners with not one, but two, perfectly good goals ruled out because Assistant referee Darren Williams is not very good at his job. We know that because we have suffered at the hand of his flag before this season.  At Coventry,  Junior Firpo’s strike hit Willy Gnonto on the line and Willy was given offside, and in the home game with Millwall when Joel Piroe scored, a fine team goal ending a flowing Leeds attack, was struck off for an incorrect offside flag against Brenden Aaronson. Those two ’goals’, and the first disallowed Leeds ‘goal’ last night, were all denied by the flag of Darren Williams. What are the chances of that?  Everyone is allowed the odd mistake but surely now, three times against the same team must, at the very least, see Williams not being chosen for our games for the foreseeable future, for his own reputation’s sake if nothing else. So, I’m putting that down to bad luck although you could equally say it was poor judgement by the EFL to nominate Williams  for that game last night. It was ironic (I can only say this because we won the game) that Leeds would suffer a second disallowed goal that should also have stood, in the second half when Paddy Bamford was wrongly flagged offside after he’d latched onto a clever Willy Gnonto pass. It was the other Assistant ref, Shaun Hudson, who got that one wrong.

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So, we had some bad luck. But we also had plenty of good luck, particularly in the number of decent openings squandered by Boro. The match stats will tell you that Boro only hit the target twice, but the more telling stat is that Middlesbrough had no less than nine shots that missed the target altogether! I’m calling that good luck for Leeds, though Boro fans would probably say it was down to their own lads’ poor ability in front of goal!

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For me, there were good points and bad last night. Our game management  towards the end was better than of late (still not perfect but better), mainly down to the substitute arrivals of Isaac Schmidt and Patrick Bamford. Schmidt was a revelation down the right hand side, tenacious in his tackling and determination to win the ball and often inspired in his use of it. Paddy B put a shift in when he came on and held the ball well and chased and won it back with some dogged perseverance. He should have had a goal too but for the errant flagger. I thought Karl Darlow did well too in, once again, doing the expected simple things well in a calm and calming manner.

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A big negative for me was the way we were once again careless in possession, often trying to run with the ball through brick walls when a simple offload would have kept us in control of the ball.  When we then lost possession we had to suffer the agonising wait to see if Boro would continue to waste their opportunities in front of goal or whether they’d finally  find their range.

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Several of our players were guilty of that. Also, brilliant as Manor Solomon and Dan James have often been this season, they still have a tendency to over hit crosses and we saw several of those too, wasting promising attacks.

At the end of the day though, some heroic defending – 6 more of the 17 Boro shots were blocked through Leeds players throwing themselves into the line of fire – got us through and even the Boro keeper spending the final minutes as a makeshift striker couldn’t help them breach our dam.

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That Millwall goal proved enough to see off Sheffield United while Derby held out against Burnley so that, only days after many Leeds fans thought all hope was lost, now the prize is back in our hands. The only slight worry for me is that by no stretch of the imagination was this the fluent Leeds United that cast all opposition aside earlier in the season. We made too many errors and that meant our performance was erratic. Boro had more than enough opportunities to hurt us but, fortunately, they couldn’t find their own recent form to do so.

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What next? Well, Paul Heckingbottom brings his Preston Lilywhites to Elland Road on Saturday lunchtime and I’m expecting another nervy game, especially if we are without Dan James as seems likely. Dan had been our outstanding forward player this season, always capable of creating chances with his electric pace on the right. Isaac Schmidt for right wing maybe?

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I have a feeling that nerves will play a huge part in our final five games and that will almost inevitably mean we will not see a return of the flamboyant attacking machine that Leeds were at the turn of the year. It feels as if grit and determination and keeping mistakes to a minimum will be the way to find victory. The good news? It will be exactly the same for Burnley and Blades, and now they have to better our results if they are to force us into the lottery of the playoffs. Whose nerve is the stronger?

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