Leeds Utd        2 (Aaronson 1, Gnonto 86)) ​

Swansea City  2 (Darling 64, vipotnik 90+6) 

 

29th March 2025. EFL Championship

35,574.

 

I honestly don’t know what to write after that! This was a must-win game that we didn’t win, a game that would have got us one game closer to the Holy Grail we’ve spent the last two years trying to secure, against a poor team with little to play for, and we didn’t turn up! When we needed our ‘A’ game, we got a shambles of a performance.

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So much about this display we have seen before – this season and last – and it’s criminal that the things we are still seeing are allowed to continue! We have a goalkeeper not fit for purpose (there, I’ve said it), we have a rocky defence that has been lauded all season on account of the few goals we’ve conceded, yet that is purely down to our attacking players dominating games, not necessarily the quality of our defenders!  When we don’t dominate games, the frailty of our defence becomes clear. We also have no idea about how to manage a game to a conclusion when the points are in the bag. Yes, when we are good, we are very, very good, but when we are bad, boy, we can be atrocious!

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We got off to a perfect start too, a scrappy goal admittedly, but a goal that should have settled us down and got us playing to our strengths – dominating the ball and attacking. Instead, we looked disjointed, our passing was loose and, for once, the opposition was better and quicker at pressing us than we were at pressing them. I say for once, but we saw a similar performance from Portsmouth too and that ended even worse for us of course.

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Meslier could have put all his detractors to bed for good after he brilliantly saved a first have penalty but, yet again, he showed his fragility only minutes later. Let’s not overlook the fact that Joe Rodon could have done so much better had he been more switched on in giving away the penalty in the first place but, yes, Illan had his hero moment. And then when a glancing header rebounded off the post straight into Illan’s hands I really did think Lady Luck had finally decided to lend us a hand… No such luck!

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How a Championship goalkeeper can continue to come up with such amateurish handling is beyond me. In the 64th minute he jumped unchallenged to claim a corner only to pat it down in front of him and, presumably aware of this tendency, Harry Darling was alert and waiting for just such a chance. Meslier has had this self-destruct tendency throughout his career with Leeds and yet still we persist, presumably believing he’ll grow out of it. Big Sam Allardyce knew the score when his first action two years ago was to remove Meslier. Surely the time has come now ? I don’t believe Karl Darlow is good enough for us really but, if it was me, it would be Karl between the sticks next week. He’s played with the other Welsh lads often enough now and they must have more confidence in him that Illan.

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Let’s not document this game as entirely the fault of Illan though, no Leeds player came out of it with much credit. Was it, as Farke seemed to suggest, just a typical first game back after an international break? Was it down to tiredness from travelling or only having one useful training session? I don’t buy it. It was a performance full of loose passes, poor final balls, allowing the Swans to press better than we did. It was a shadow of the sort of display we got used to in January and February. Why?

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We looked to have got away with it when Willy Gnonto, fresh from the bench, came on to rifle the ball through a crowded area to grab the lead again, the ball palmed away by the Swans’ keeper after a powerful Pascal Struijk header came in from a Rothwell corner. There were only four minutes of normal time left; let’s see some professional game management…

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What did we see? We saw needless free kicks given away, possession given up too easily. We could have done what Swansea did earlier – go down a couple of times with feigned cramp, slow the game down. Instead we saw Mateo Joseph meekly lose possession from our own throw-in, we saw Ao Tanaka get out-fought in a tackle, and we saw Illan Meslier react slowly again to allow Vipotnik’s low angled shot beat him under his dive. I have said too many times already this season that the only team likely to stop Leeds getting promotion this season is Leeds themselves and this was exactly the sort of display that proves the point.

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OK, on a positive note, and ignoring the obvious annoyance that we’ve failed to win a game that was all but won – one of the four home games Daniel Farke told us he felt would secure promotion for us if we won them – we are still in a good position, especially if we continue to remind ourselves that Burnley and Blades still have to play each other; that gives us the slightest of advantages. BUT the problem is that we all know any team is only as good as their last game and, while the Blades and the Clarets safely negotiated tricky looking games against Coventry and Bristol City this weekend, we slipped up in what looked to be the easiest game. So, a neutral observer would, I think, conclude that it is entirely possible, playing how the three teams have played in their recent games, to see Leeds failing to win as many points as the other two might muster. The other worry is that, should that prove to be the case, would we mentally be up to the task of winning a play-off semi-final, let alone another trip to Wembley? Of course, the worry is we’ll continue to play like we did today and not like we did earlier this calendar year.

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The sooner we see the Leeds United that cast aside all-comers in January and February, the sooner our belief will return but, on the back of one win in five, I’m finding it hard to believe that the other Leeds United will return. Suddenly trips to Luton and Middlesbrough look like the toughest of assignments.