Leeds had more of the possession and created the better chances against Bristol City, so it feels a little frustrating that we didn’t take all three points.
The day began with the annual remembrance day commemoration, as this was City’s last home game before November 11th, and that was followed by a minute to comfort their coach Liam Manning after the tragic death of his young son. Daniel Farke had two enforced changes to make, opting for Byram rather than Scmidt to replace the suspended Firpo, while Dan James came in for the injured Ramazani.
I was expecting to say that Gnonto moved over to the left to allow James to operate on the right, but Willy actually seemed to have a much freer role, popping up wherever he wanted to, in the midst of a cautious start to the game by both sides. And just as we seemed to be gathering a bit of momentum, the home side created a couple of chances while Meslier seemed to be left flat-footed.
Our keeper never moved as McNally tried an overhead kick, and though he might have already seen the shot was going wide, he wouldn’t have had time to get to the ball if it had gone towards the top corner. But Meslier would have had more of an excuse a few minutes later when Hirakawa’s shot was deflected, thankfully just past the post.
In the later stages of the first half we started to dominate, and Bogle headed into the side netting from Byram’s deep cross, though the hosts would have been unlucky to concede just then, with McCrorie off the field having treatment. Then we had a promising break following one of their corners, but James should have passed to Gnonto earlier than he did while the two defenders were drawn to him, and the chance petered out.
Shortly afterwards the roles were reversed, and this time James was put through by a superb pass from Gnonto. His idea of trying the ‘dink’ over the keeper was probably the best one, but he didn’t quite get enough lift on it, and O’Leary was able to make the save. In between these two chances Gnonto produced our best effort of the half, cutting in from the left to send a fierce right foot shot in on goal, forcing O’Leary to stretch to turn it round the post.
And when Gnonto did manage to get his shot past O’Leary early in the second half, he was foiled by Vyner’s superb goal-line clearance. The defender not only managed to race back in time but also to adjust his feet at the last second to send the ball away from goal. That was to be the closest Leeds got, as the game continued it’s pattern of Bristol defending very deep for a home side, while Leeds passed the ball around to try to find an opening.
Aaronson shot narrowly wide, Tanaka had a fierce shot deflected wide and Byram headed over from a corner. With 20 minutes left Farke made a couple of changes. James was perhaps not at his sharpest at this stage of his recovery from injury, and the equally not-fully-fit Solomon replaced him. At least they could manage 90 minutes between them.
The other change made a the same time saw Joseph come on for Piroe, and almost immediately produced his trademark header over the bar. The most significant moment in the time that remained was Bogle picking up his fifth booking of the season for a sly trip to interrupt a Bristol City breakaway. So he misses the Plymouth game next week, which might mean Byram swapping flanks while Firpo comes back.
Bamford replaced Gnonto for the closing, but despite three additional minutes being played, the game petered out as a goalless draw. You could say that a point away to a team in the top half of the table is a reasonable result, but Bristol City got there without having to face too many top sides, and they didn’t offer a great deal going forward. It’s good to see that the Leeds manager shared my opinion that we should have won when he spoke to the media after the final whistle.
"We did more than enough to win this difficult away game. I have looked at the objective data and I can’t complain about anything. We had 70 per cent possession with 17 to four shots and 10 times the amount of expected goals that they did. We did not allow them one proper chance and the feeling was that we created more than enough to score more than one goal”.
"We were wasteful in front of the opponent’s goal so, statistics-wise, it was a dominant game but I have the feeling we weren’t at our very best today — and we were a bit slow to start but more or less improved after 20 minutes.” At least Burnley could also do no better than a draw, but Sunderland won again, to move five points ahead of us.
But we remain third in the table, and with the next five games all being against teams in the bottom half of the table, we should start to make up some ground on them. That’s if we can start to take our chances and win all the games that we should win…