THIS ONE IS FOR YOU, STUEY
Manager dedicates win to mourning midfielder Dallas
THOMAS Christiansen dedicated a comprehensive Championship win to absent Stuart Dallas following the death of the midfielder’s mother.
After seeing his side end a three-match losing streak with a victory secured by two goals from Sam Saiz and one from PierreMichel Lasogga, the Leeds boss said: “We wanted to put in a performance for Stuey following the bad news that his mother had passed away.
“The players, staff and myself send our condolences and assure him that this win was for him.”
The Leeds boss had good cause to be proud of his team’s return to winning ways at the expense of fellow high-flyers City.
Both sides ended with ten men following the late dismissals of Leeds full-back Gaetano Berardi and City substitute Matt Taylor for an ugly clash after a foul by the visiting defender.
Christiansen said: “I didn’t see what happened for the sending-off, but the referee told me afterwards that he had no choice.
“I was very happy with the performance of the team. It is the same players who put us in the position we were in going into the match and today the difference was the intensity of our play.
“I told them we were up against a good side and that probably helped the players focus on their jobs.
“We needed to be brave and believe in ourselves. The early goals helped and today we took our chances, whereas in other games we should have been ahead, but failed to score when we might have.”
Victory ended Leeds’ run of three straight defeats, while Bristol City lost for the first time since 12 August.
Leeds went ahead on four minutes when Lasogga slid the ball into the path of Saiz, whose right-footed shot from inside the box appeared to take a deflection to beat Frank Fielding.
Ten minutes later Saiz was on target again, latching onto a loose ball inside the box and finding the roof of the net from 12 yards.
Lasogga capitalised on poor marking to head home a Kalvin
Phillips corner to complete the scoring on 67 minutes.
City head coach Lee Johnson had no complaints about the result, but does intend to appeal the sending-off of Taylor.
“I have seen the incident and as far as I am concerned Matty was blameless other than to complain about being fouled,” he said.
“He has a broken nose so it was a nasty clash. We will definitely appeal the decision and I think the film evidence backs our case.
“Overall, it was a bad day at the office for us. We were weak today and that is not usually the case.
“We were off it in the first 20 minutes and that’s when the game was decided. Some key players were missing through injury and illness, but those selected were capable of doing better.
“Now we face Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night and we need to get back to form quickly.”
Backed by 3,717 travelling fans who took over one end of Ashton Gate and raised the volume from the outset, Leeds were stronger all over the field.
They might have won more easily as Saiz shot wide of an open goal with a hat-trick begging in the second half and Lasogga had a shot cleared off the line by Aden Flint.
Bobby Reid went closest for City with a powerful first half header, but they were unable to produce the flowing passing game that had taken them into the play-off zone.