Leeds did indeed produce an excellent performance at Aston Villa on Friday night, but the Premier League is a results business, so how much longer has Jesse Marsch got if we don’t start picking up some more points?

Our head coach had one enforced change to make to his starting line-up, with Summerville out with the injury he suffered at Cardiff, and Harrison coming back after his fine performance from the bench against West Ham. Though quite strangely he started playing through the centre, with Aaronson out wide.

But one thing that Marsch hasn’t managed to change is that Leeds seem to be forever vulnerable to a swift counter-attack. After two minutes we forced the first corner of the game, but when it came to Roca in a dangerous position he didn’t manage to control it and get a shot away. Instead, Villa took possession and broke away.

At the time I was cursing Stuijk for not getting closer to Bailey, but on the TV replay I can see that he needed to cover two other forwards running through the centre. But he needed to stop the Jamaican from cutting back inside onto his favoured left foot, and the Villa man took the opportunity to fire his side in front.

But from then on Leeds went on to dominate the rest of the half, though somehow without converting any of our chances into the equaliser we deserved. Harrison was denied by a brilliant save from Martinez, and when Rodrigo managed to take the ball round the keeper he found Moreno racing back to block his shot.

Another fine piece of defending took the ball off Rodrigo’s toe when he turned to shoot on the edge of the six-yard box, and when he did find the net, his effort was chalked off by a review for offside. It wasn’t going to be our night with VAR, which failed to intervene on a couple of occasions when our players were wrestled to the floor, but even if we had been awarded a penalty we would have been up against the hero of the world cup final shoot-out.

And there was more of the same in the second half, with Gnonto’s curling right foot shot superbly saved by Martinez. But in typical Leeds fashion, we went and conceded another goal on the break in the 66th minute. Struijk allowed to Bailey to cut inside onto his left once again and although Meslier saved the shot, Buendia was on hand to head the rebound over him into the net.

Initially the goal was disallowed for offside, but VAR soon revealed that Ayling was playing Buendia on when the original shot was made, so the decision was overruled and the goal stood. Marsch reacted by making the first two changes, with Wöber coming on for Struijk and the returning Bamford replacing Harrison.

Struijk has had plenty of flack from the pundits in recent weeks, but we have to bear in mind that he’s not operating in his most favoured position. The defence looked a bit more solid with Wöber on the field, and he will no doubt be a regular starter once he gets up to speed. But it was the other substitute who had the greatest impact as we pulled one back with seven minutes remaining.

Gnonto had been having quite a tussle with Ashley Young all evening, and this time he used his strength to get the better of the veteran and was off down the wing. He seemed to have lost control inside the area, but turned to cross to Bramford, who had raced into the right place to smash the ball into the corner of the net.

Villa’s new man Moreno missed a good chance to restore their two-goal margin by shooting into the side netting, and Marsch made a few more changes to get the more positive formation we needed to press for the equaliser. Gelhardt and Greenwood came on for Aaronson and Roca, and with a few minutes left Firpo replaced Koch, with Wöber moving more centrally.

But none of this was enough to force the elusive second goal, even though the announced six minutes of injury time was quite rightly extended to take account of some blatant time-wasting by Martinez. And despite the bright performance, Marsch had to endure a bit of hostile chanting when he led the team to thank the Leeds section of the crowd for their support.

But as he spoke to the media he was keen to look for the positives. “In our sport sometimes you can be on top in the match and lose. For me though, this was our most complete performance that we've had since I've been here and the best example of the way that I believe the team can play. There’s obviously frustration in the fact that we lose the points on the day when we play well.”

“But now we have, I think, something to attach ourselves to and a benchmark for how good we can be. This is our best away match for sure since I've been here, and for me our best complete match, so I’m in a positive place with our group. I’m really happy to see so many of them commit to the things that we want to play brave, with confidence and belief and now we need to continue on this path and even get better.”

And he even said “we don’t have to talk about the table”, but there may be a few within the club’s hierarchy who will beg to differ. The negotiations regarding the 49ers complete takeover of the club are ongoing, but the word is that they are reluctant to commit themselves while our place in the Premier League is still in doubt.

If we do talk about the table we will find Leeds in 14th place after yesterday’s three matches between teams who began the weekend beneath us. We are sitting uncomfortably only two points above the bottom three, with only two wins from the last 15 games.

So although Marsch keeps looking on the bright side when he talks to the press, he will have to find a way to convert our good performances into some better results. The new signings will help, but if he can’t get this team any better organised pretty soon, he is not likely to be in the job for that much longer.

Reuters

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