It was a very familiar story as Leeds had some good spells during this afternoon’s defeat at AFC Bournemouth, only for all our good work to be undone by some basic defensive errors, and the fanbase has lost what little faith we had in Javi Gracia.

Yesterday we all breathed a sigh of relief when Nottingham Forest ended up losing at Brentford, and the defeats for West Ham and Wolves rekindled the faint hope that we may yet catch one of those two sides. But none of these results would be any use if we didn’t start to pick up points ourselves, and the failure to beat Leicester on Monday night meant it was imperative that we got something from this game.

After the disappointments of recent weeks Gracia changed his formation 3-4-3, and Rodrigo and Firpo were dropped from the starting line-up. Kristensen came in, I think as an extra central defender, and just to prove he does do requests after all, Willy Gnonto was back on the left touchline.

I’ve seen one post on social media that the head coach doesn’t know what his best eleven or formation is, but to a large extent that’s a case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. He’s been criticised for not making changes or making them too late, yet here he was trying something different after the previous set-up hadn’t been working.

Leeds began the game well, and we thought we had a penalty for handball in the first few minutes, but VAR told referee Chris Kavanagh that the offence had been just outside the box. Roca struck the free kick well, but Neto was able to deal with it. But once again the opposition was able to grab the first goal in the 20th minute, and all our hard work would go to waste.

Billing outjumped our defence to nod the ball down to Solanke. He jinked past a couple of defenders as he made his way into the area before pulling it back for Billing. Cooper dived in front of him to make a great block, but the ball ran kindly for the unchallenged Lerma, who bent the ball inside the post from the edge of the area.

And one became two a few minutes later, when Meslier came out to meet a corner but misjudged it, as the ball was too high from him to grab hold of. He could only push it straight up in the air, and Lerma was there to smash the ball into the net, sadly giving more ammunition to those who think our goalkeeper’s confidence is shot and it’s time to give Robles a go.

It looked like Leeds would crumble once again after conceding a couple of quick goals, but in fact we managed to pull one back just after the half-hour mark. Gnonto cut in from the left flank and curled an excellent cross onto the head of the unmarked Bamford, who completed the simple task of nodding the ball into the net.

Just before half time we were forced to make our first substitution. Cooper had been hobbling around for a while, and looked distraught as he finally accepted he would have to come off. His replacement was Wöber, who presumably wasn’t fully fit himself, as he hadn’t started. But we were back in the game and produced the first decent chance of the second period.

Harrison went down the left and his deep cross was headed across the face of goal by Ayling beyond the far post. Gnonto rose to meet it, but under pressure from a defender he could only send the ball wide of the post. But on 63 minutes the Cherries were to restore their two goal lead, as our defence showed once again how vulnerable it is to a quick breakaway.

A long ball down the field from the Bournemouth keeper found Ouattara, who got the better of Wöber, and when Koch couldn’t cut out the cross Solanke collected it and turned to steer the ball past Meslier. Wöber claimed he’d been fouled and there was a VAR check for a possible offside, but that found that the goal should stand and Bournemouth were 3-1 up.

Still Leeds kept coming, but were denied by a fine double save by Neto. Koch met Harrison’s corner with a firm header but the Bournemouth keeper kept it out, and recovered in time get his hands to Gnonto’s follow-up shot. At the other end the home side had an even better chance , but Moore headed over from close range, possibly because he was still feeling the effects of an earlier clash of heads.

Gracia made another couple of changes to try to get back into the game, with Bamford and McKennie making way for Forshaw and Rodrigo, but our top scorer found it hard to get into the game and make the impact we desperately needed. And with Leeds pressing forward, there were inevitable gaps at the back for Bournemouth to exploit, and they duly grabbed a fourth goal in the 90th minute.

Anthony was unchallenged as he weaved his way through the heart of the Leeds midfield before picking out Semenyo with a pass, but Meslier should have done a lot better with the shot. Instead he let it bounce over his arms and into the corner of the net. That killed off any chance Leeds had of getting something from this game, though there were five minutes of injury time to endure before the referee put us out of our misery with the final whistle.

By then the Leeds contingent in the crowd had been making their feelings known, with chants of “you’re not fit to wear the shirt” amongst other things. To some extent that was a little bit harsh, as there was no shortage of effort for most of the game, and I wouldn’t say that the balance of play overall deserved a three-goal margin.

But what did Javi Gracia have to say when he spoke to LUTV after the game? To be honest, not a lot that the fans haven’t been saying already for the last few weeks, and he didn’t seem to offer any solutions beyond the patently obvious. “It’s the same situation as the last performances, conceding soft goals we are not aggressive enough in both boxes we have to improve”.

“We are in a critical situation where if you make mistakes you are going to pay for it”. And when asked what he and the players could do for the difficult fixtures coming up he said “to work hard and try to prepare as best we can”. Meanwhile Phil Hay was suggesting the board might as well dispense with him for the last four games and go back to Michael Skubala.

And Luke Ayling sympathised with the fans who were showing their frustration towards the end. “With sloppy goals in the first half we don’t really give ourselves a chance. The fans pay their money and travel all the way down here, and to give a performance like that is just not good enough. We’re going to have to find a way to bounce back and hopefully we can start next week”.

He also said "We've got four games like every other team down there, we're fifth from bottom and we've stayed out of it for now.” But that’s overlooking the fact that Leicester and Everton play each other tomorrow night, and whatever happens in that game one of them will have gone above us before we travel to Manchester City on Saturday.

Will Gracia still be in charge for that game? He has admitted that he might not be, and tonight the Leeds United Supporters Advisory Board have issued a vote of no confidence not only in him, but the entire management of the club. Desperate times.

Reuters

Leeds United Polls