What HAS gone wrong with Leeds?
Ayling furious with own team as Bielsa’s men sunk by Brighton
IT’S BARELY 100 days since Leeds were matching Manchester City blow for blow here in arguably this Premier League campaign’s most mesmerising match to date. That dazzling, indefatigable side presently seem like a distant memory.
It doesn’t help to have Kalvin Phillips, the heartbeat of the team, suspended. It doesn’t help a side which relies on rapid, high-impact football to be playing on a surface resembling a public park. The pitch, laid 26 years ago ahead of Elland Road’s part in Euro 96, has none of the synthetic component of modern stadiums and was to have been re-laid last summer until the events which have changed everything ruined those plans. The new turf must wait until next season.
But none of that adds up to an explanation for an afternoon when Leeds looked like a side for whom the lights have gone out. The decisive 17th-minute goal said everything about Brighton’s greater fluidity and presence of mind. A sharp, incisive, five-man exchange of possession between the excellent Alexis Mac Allister and Leandro Trossard, whose return pass was exquisite, before Argentinian Mac Allister’s ball reached Neal Maupay, utterly unnoticed by Luke Ayling as he waited to tap in his seventh goal of the season.
Marcelo Bielsa had no explanation for how his side — who have not scored in three games in 2021 — created so little, despite holding 66 per cent possession against a Brighton team playing their third game in six days. But the Leeds malaise was more fundamental than a lack of ammunition.
There was the failure to mark-up from throw- ins. The ease with which Ben White, ex-Leeds, went past Raphinha and strode 40 yards through midfield. The loose passes by Pascal Struijk, the central defender filling Phillips’ boots, slowing momentum at the critical point in play when Leeds would usually look to break out. ‘He didn’t shine but also didn’t commit errors that unbalanced the team,’ Bielsa said of Struijk. The competitiveness of this division requires rather more than merely not messing up.
Brighton, who had not won in nine Premier League matches, did everything they have failed to do in that stretch, which extended back to November 21. They found passes to break the defensive lines, displayed attacking confidence in Mac Allister, Trossard and Maupay, and were defensively soli d. They could have gone two ahead when
Trossard’s deflected shot, after good build-up play with Dan Burn, hit the bar. Leeds are usually undone when teams strike out on the counter-attack and find spaces behind them. Here, they were just being beaten man-for-man.
There had been some anticipation that the indignity of last weekend’s FA Cup defeat by League Two Crawley might have triggered a reaction. But there was just none of the purpose and passing zip from a side whose predicament by half-time could have been worse without the purpose of Ayling.
When Mac Allister eased into dangerous territory and took aim around the half-hour after another unchallenged throw- i n, Ayling hurled himself into a headed block. The defender was making no secret of his frustrations by the hour mark. ‘What the **** are you there for? **** me!,’ he screamed at the i neffective Rodrigo, who was replaced by Welsh international Tyler Roberts soon afterwards.
Leeds’ first- half chances were limited to a low cross into the sixyard box by Ezgjan Alioski, which Rodrigo should have got a touch on, and an air shot by Patrick Bamford from the same supply line.
They did show more intent after the break. There was a sharp run into the box by Raphinha whose ball for Rodrigo was deflected to Jack Harrison who shot over.
As the home side began to display intent and apply pressure, Brighton looked vulnerable. But it was too late to conjure a comeback. ‘We tended to lower our capabilities below our usual level,’ Bielsa said.
‘We only managed to recover the ball close to our own goal. Every time we lost the ball the adaptations took us to the edge of our own area to recover it and we attacked below our usual capabilities.’ A
third Premier League win of the season took Brighton five points clear of the bottom three and buys some breathing space. Vital on a day when West Bromwich also showed some life. To be fair, there have been several occasions during their winless run when three points were deserved. There were five draws and four defeats in that sequence. ‘ Our challenge has always been to turn performances into results,’ manager Graham Potter reflected. ‘We have to learn from the first half of the season and get better in the second.’
For Bielsa, there are echoes of last January in the run of three successive defeats. Back then, the sequence extended to five losses in six, running i nto February — though his side recovered with five straight wins before lockdown. Then, as now, they need to put their indifferent football behind them in a hurry.