Wasteful Leeds irk boss Bielsa
LEEDS United boss Marcelo Bielsa declared that he was “truly disappointed” to only pick up a point from the Yorkshire derby against Sheffield Wednesday.
Superb individual goals from Adam Reach and Mateusz Klich either side of the interval ensured that the spoils were shared at Hillsborough.
There was a scare for Wednesday when a cross from Samuel Saiz saw Ash Baker slice his clearance a fraction wide of Cameron Dawson’s left-hand post.
The home side had another let-off moments later when a header from Barry Douglas came back off Dawson’s righthand post.
Baker had a shot saved by Bailey Peacock-Farrell, while Dawson was called into action to turn Klich’s shot from the edge of the area over the bar.
In the final minute of the half, Reach struck with an audacious effort from around 30 yards out, the ball going in via a post. Leeds levelled after 54 minutes when Klich beat Dawson with a curling effort which went just inside the keeper’s left-hand post.
Penney tested Peacock-Farrell with a long-range shot which was well saved by the keeper.
Tyler Roberts then went close to putting the visitors in front, firing in a shot which was only just off-target.
Tom Lees came to his side’s rescue with a vital interception inside the area as Ezgjan Alioski threatened to find a way through.
As Leeds applied strong pressure, Hector did well to hook the ball away under pressure from Roberts and Thorniley cleared off the line. Bielsa said: “I am truly disappointed. I don’t like to judge the performance of the opponents, but the fact that we needed 25 chances to score talks about what we deserved.
“Usually, we need three chances to score one goal and this statistic is common to teams that lead their competition. Against Birmingham in the previous game, we needed eight chances to score and tonight we needed 25 chances.
“I’m glad that the supporters celebrated Klich’s goal because he deserves the celebration from the fans.
“When you evaluate the performance of the team and you look at the number of chances, you can’t say that we’re satisfied with the result.”
Reflecting on one win from the past five games, Bielsa added: “It’s hard for me to sum up the comment elements from five games.”
Owls boss Jos Luhukay said: “It was a fantastic first half from both sides, played at an unbelievable speed.
“It was hard in the second half. Leeds put us under pressure and they deserved to get the draw. They had chances to score a second goal. The team had a mentality to get a better result, but Leeds played with high pressure.
“Leeds have a very good team, quick and offensive. We must recover fast for another strong opponent in midweek.”
On Reach’s goal, Luhukay added: “This goal can maybe be the best goal of the season, it was special.”