Watford           0                                 

Leeds United  4 (James 20, 28, Solomon 35, Piroe 62) 

 

11th ​February, 2025, EFL Championship.

19,582.

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Sooner or later all we Leeds United fans are going to have to accept that we currently have one hell of a football team! Yet again, I travelled down to Watford expecting a really tough game against a side renowned this season for its home form (only Leeds and Sheffield United have better home records) and one that was fresh from pushing one of our promotion rivals, Sunderland,  to the very edge. A tricky game you’d have thought – much as we all thought Cardiff on their run, and Coventry on theirs would be tricky! But the Leeds United train stayed on track and put the Hornets away with relative ease despite a spirited performance from the home side, a performance that showed why they have at times flirted with the top six this season. 

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The thing is, for me, as I’ve said many times before, Leeds have been the better side in every league game we’ve played this season against good sides and bad, we may not have won them all but we’ve had the better match stats in pretty much all of them. And most Championship managers have commented about our superiority when their teams have been so convincingly beaten; Tom Cleverley adding to the list by saying after the game last night: “We were in the presence of a very strong Championship side. I think we knew that before, but it is one of the best teams I have seen at this level.” I believe he meant of all time too, not just this season.

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I know we will all now be thinking that our current run will come to an end when we face Sunderland next Monday, that’s just how Leeds fans are programmed after so many years of tripping ourselves up just at the point when we start running towards the finish line. But this feels different this season; match in and match out we have been strong enough to do what promotion teams do: win games, week after week. It feels like it will take something out of the ordinary to stop us now and the only question seems to be how long can our rivals continue to hang onto our coat tails.

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Last night was slightly different to our usual script in that Watford had the biggest share of the possession – a rarity for our opposition this campaign. They recorded 61% to our 39%, the sort of figures we often reported ourselves in our closest fought games. But, even with so much less of the ball, Leeds were totally efficient in our use of it. Our counterattack speed was awe inspiring and our finishing was (mostly!) clinical. We posted 20 shots, with 7 on target and four found the net compared to facing just six shots from the Hornets - very similar attempt stats to the Cventry game which we know should also have been 4 or 5 nil. The two Watford got on target were both well saved by Illan Meslier who, since his Hull debacle, has looked very solid. In defence generally  we also looked as strong as I’ve seen us and we posted yet another clean sheet.  Even seven Watford corners didn't give us any trouble this time not that we made much of our seven either; that remains a weak part of our game, one of very few.

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For all their decent home form, last night the Hornets did give us a bit of a helping hand with the opening  goal. That came in the 20th minute when a defender played a ridiculous “blind” pass straight into the path of Dan James in the middle of the Hornets half and he gleefully accepted the gift and smacked the ball low into the left corner of the net. The second was just a lightning-quick breakaway. Tanaka ended a promising-looking Watford attack in our own box, Ampadu hooked it up-field to Brenden Aaronson and he  pushed it on to Joel Piroe. Dan James sprinted through the middle while this was all going on and was perfectly placed behind the Watford back line to accept the final ball from Piroe. This time Dan lashed it high into the roof of the net. A third goal in the space of 15 minutes came from Manor Solomon and was made by Manor Solomon. He cleverly rolled a defender from a Firpo throw-in midway in the Watford half and he simply took it to within 25 yards before letting fly. If you buy a ticket and all that… the ball took a wicked deflection off a defender’s heel and wrong-footed the keeper much as we saw that Azeez shot on Saturday beat Karl Darlow.

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A fourth came just after the hour mark. It started in the inside left channel with Manor Solomon touching it to Ao Tanaka. Ao did a complete 360 degree turn with the ball before slotting it through to Solomon again, now inside the crowded area. He played the ball parallel with the goal line about 12 yards out to Joel Piroe and his dancing feet did the rest, shimmying past a defender leaving him on his arse on the turf before slotting the ball into the corner of the net.

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Dan James had other chances to grab his hat-trick but, the best of them he pulled wide after some scintillating interplay down the right hand side so it finished 0 – 4 with the intensity falling as Farke began to remove our key men and send on their understudies in the closing minutes. Willy Gnonto was the liveliest of the subs, just failing to get a toe to one through ball that would have just been the cherry on top of a very efficient away win. Mateo Joseph yet again didn't impress in his little cameo appearance.

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Now we sit back and see if our three rivals can survive the relentless pressure in their home games tonight. Burnley face Hull City, Sunderland host Luton and Sheffield United host Middlesbrough; you’d think there would be at least one surprise in amongst those fixtures wouldn’t you?