Daneil Farke was rightly annoyed by the dismissal of Joe Rodon after a ludicrous first yellow card, but also blamed the defender for diving into a challenge when he was already on a booking. And he thought that Hull City should have been out of the game before we went down to ten men.
When he spoke to the press after the game the Leeds manager said "Yes he is [unlucky to be sent off]. Let's be honest. If you judge a game, that he's not allowed to finish feels harsh. When I judge how many technical fouls there were against Cree, it feels harsh. First half was never a yellow, it was not even a foul, no one can explain to me how it was a yellow”.
But he also thought that Rodon should have been a bit more cautious with his tackling from then on. "You have to deal a bit smarter with the situation, the duel in the second half. That's where we have to be a bit more self-critical, it changed the momentum of the game.” By the time Farke spoke to LUTV today, he’d had time to analyse the game as a whole.
"If you would have told me before, after a difficult away game at Millwall with just two days off, we are there with a clean sheet and a point at Hull who have started the season really well, I wouldn’t have taken it because I always want to go for the three points, but I would have said it’s definitely a good point on the road”.
"After the game, I’m a bit divided, after 65 minutes only one team would win this game, we didn’t allow them one chance and we created so many clear chances in the first half and the second half started in the same way. It wasn’t a question of if we would go into the lead, it was when. Small situations can change the momentum of the game, and then under the circumstances it is a good point.”
The manager had made two changes to his starting line-up, with James selected in place of Summerville, and Shackleton coming back instead of Byram, who can’t manage three games in six days any more. Shacks wasn’t the only former Leeds academy right back on the field playing at left back, as Lewie Coyle was performing exactly the same role for Hull.
After the last two away games I was looking forward to another counter-attacking spectacular, but Liam Rosenior had obviously been watching the videos of those games and knew how dangerous our attacking talent could be on the break. So his side showed very little ambition for a home team, and it became another frustrating match for Joel Piroe, on the lines of the Sheffield Wednesday game.
Even so, we were to dominate the possession for the first hour, with our threat only increasing once Willy Gnonto had to hobble off after 21 minutes, to be replaced by Summerville. The flying Dutchman had an excellent game, and was involved in all four of the outstanding chances we created during the game.
The best of them came from Summerville’s excellent through ball to put Rutter clean through. But the Frenchman gave the keeper the chance to narrow the angle as he moved the ball onto his left foot, then slightly stumbled as he shot, giving Allsop the chance to knock the ball away with his legs. Shortly afterwards Summerville cut inside from the left to towards goal, but unfortunately sent his fierce right-footed shot straight at Allsop.
The Hull keeper had more to do to keep out the next chance, when Summerville again came in from the left, this time playing a one-two with Rutter before forcing Allsop was to dive to push the ball round the post. But in this phase of the game Rodon picked the first yellow that would have consequences later on, after he won the ball, but his momentum caused him to collide with Philogene, as the Hull man stumbled into his path.
Leeds continued to dominate in the early part of the second half, with a pull-back from Ayling leading to shots from James and Summerville which were both blocked. But then came the moment that changed the game, when Rodon was slightly late into a challenge as Hull threatened to break away, catching Connolly just after the ball had gone.
His second yellow card was followed by a red, and suddenly Leeds had to batten down the hatches to make sure we got something from the game. Piroe was sacrificed so we could shore up the back line with the returning Cooper as the replacement defender, while Anthony also came on for James at the same time.
So we fell back on defence for the rest of the game, but like ourselves, Hull struggled to make their possession count. I remember a dangerous ball across the face of goal with nobody getting a touch and Meslier having to punch clear a couple of times, but it took the Dullards until the 90th minute to create the chance that really should have won them the game.
Connolly cut into the area and sent the ball across the six-yard box, but just when the whole stadium expected the unchallenged Traore to knock the ball into an empty net, he managed to smash it against the post. It was an unbelievable let-off for us, but we’ll take it.
Yet we still had six minutes of injury time to survive. That stemmed from Coyle being allowed to remain on the pitch while being treated, which was annoying as if he’d been told to go off we would have had a short spell of even numbers at ten a side.
We began the extra period by removing the tiring Ayling to give Byram a go, but even then Bill was determined not to go quietly. First he caused a row by trying to walk slowly across the pitch before being told to leave by the nearest touchline. And despite being off the field he still managed to pick up an entertaining yellow card for timewasting, right in front of the Leeds fans.
Thankfully the referee forgot to add on even more time for these antics, so when Hull were daft enough to take far too long over a throw-in, he blew the final whistle rather than letting them have one final chance, and we had held on for a point. That took us up to ninth in the table, but unfortunately we’re already eight points behind Leicester and Preston.
We’ve now drawn four games out of seven, and we need to start converting our chances to win some more of these tight games in order to make up lost ground. But they say that decisions even itself out over the course of a season, and if we have more luck than we had last night we must start to climb the table soon.