Bamford gets a ticket to shine
Rumbled Leeds fans miss crucial win
THEY may have been able to thwart Leeds off the field but there was no stopping them on the pitch at Ashton Gate.
Hundreds of Leeds supporters who had secured seats among home fans were rumbled in a joint operation with Bristol City in the run up to this game and had tickets revoked.
They were left counting the cost because they missed an impressive win.
Leeds, who began the game in third place, moved back into one of the two automatic promotions spots after sealing it with their first attack.
Patrick Bamford made the most of ponderous defending to score his fourth goal in four games.
He g u i d e d the ball beyond third-choice City keeper Max O’Leary after 19-year-old forward Antoine Semenyo was caught off guard by a long crossfield ball to Luke Ayling who headed goalwards where the finishing touch was applied.
Former Chelsea striker Bamford required treatment after crashing into a post as the ball trickled over the line but that was the only source of anxiety for Leeds until first-half stoppage time.
With Kalvin Phillips keeping City at arm’s length, Leeds attacked with purpose. Chances came and went for Bamford and Jack Harrison, who scuffed his shot wide.
Harrison’s heart would have been in his mouth when Leeds were suddenly at sixes and sevens as Marlon Pack gave chase to Jamie Paterson’s pass, beating Kiko Casilla and finding Famara Diedhiou, who set his sights on an empty goal before Pontus Jansson came to the rescue.
Despite the flurry of activity Lee Johnson’s players were booed off at half- time having been given the runaround. The game certainly lacked the needle created when, amid Spygate, City owner Steve Lansdown had called for Leeds to be deducted points. It was business as usual for Leeds after the break. Tyler Roberts, pushed up front after Bamford went off nursing a leg injury, had a chance to put clear water between t he si des after Harrison bamboozled the home defence, but shot straight at O’Leary. Johnson sent on Matty Taylor and Andreas Weimann to invigorate his team and it worked but Pack saw a half-hearted shot saved.
At least it gave the locals something to shout about. Taylor had a chance t o equalise but Casilla plucked his attempted lob out of the air, a cool bit of work that was in contrast to his angry nose-to-nose exchange with Bailey Wright after they had gone for a loose ball.
One of Marcelo Bielsa’s assistants was yellow carded as pressure mounted but Casilla regained his composure and stood tall amid a late onslaught — and with the Leeds players boosted by high- energy snacks there was no way they were going to make a meal of this game. But Bielsa was not getting carried away, saying: ‘It’s hard to enjoy it straight after a game, even when you win. When I analyse later I do enjoy living this.’
He added: ‘ In the first hour we could have had a different score but in the last 15 minutes they could have drawn. We played a different game from the style we want to use. In the last 20 minutes we didn’t have the ball.’
Counterpart Johnson’s mood was darker. He said: ‘It was a competitive, scrappy, horrible game. I was disappointed with our quality but you have to give them credit for the way they hustled and harried.’