27th January, 2025, EFL Championship.
I’m really getting quite good at this prediction lark, I predicted 0 – 0 in my little piece for the YEP ahead of the Burnley game, and I’ve called quite a few correctly recently. No, actually, I’m not getting any better at it, the truth is, for the most part this season Leeds have done exactly what they should do if they are indeed the best team in the division which I believe they are, so it’s made the predictions much easier to get right! In years gone by Leeds often made a mockery of pre-match predictions!
My prediction today was based on the fact that the Clarets had recorded eight goalless draws already this season and they have the best defensive record in the division while being one of the lowest scorers of goals in the Championship – only Blackburn in the top half of the table have scored less!
For our part, we were unlucky to lose the reverse fixture back in September and, but for Manor Solomon’s slip, that too would have ended 0 – 0. We have sometimes found it hard to break down good defences. It was the obvious prediction to make. I wasn’t totally convinced it was the right move to leave Joe Rothwell out for this one either, he and Ao have played so well together so often this season that I’d have been tempted to keep them together again, while I think we might have benefitted from having Junior Firpo on the pitch instead of Sam Byram. Sam is better defensively but this seemed like a game where we’d boss the possession and need more going forward. Just my opinion.
Having said all that though, Leeds, once again were the better side in this encounter. While Leeds did at least try to get forward and look for ways to pull the Burnley defence out of position, Burnley, for their part looked to me to be playing for the draw from the off! Like most sides we have faced, they took their time about every restart – every free kick, every goal kick, and James Trafford took an age over his clearances. That we couldn’t find a way through them came down to some loose final balls and some poor set piece deliveries. Oh, and yet another poor referee who seemed to think his yellow cards only applied to the yellow shirts!
Looking at the stats they just about prove my point about Leeds being the better side – twice as many shots for Leeds, albeit only 8 of them, five corners to their solitary one, 18 touches in the opposition box to their eight and 56% of the possession. Defensively you have to hand it to the Clarets though, they do look very strong in that department and they limited us to just one shot that hit the target and that was a Dan James rocket brilliantly turned away by James Trafford, he that saved two Sunderland penalties in the previous game at Turf Moor. That 0 – 0 game was another good pointer for this one.
So, the round 29 of games was a success for Leeds – getting one point more than the Blades and the same as Sunderland from a much more difficult fixture. For me, Leeds have been the best side in every game we have played this season, we sometimes haven’t got the results we deserved, but we’ve always been the better side. As long as we continue to do that week in, week out, we should be OK come May.
The next test is to see off Cardiff City on Saturday. Whilst a quick look at the table might suggest that will be easy, the Bluebirds have found a bit of form recently and have recorded some decent results; they won 1 – 0 at Bramall Lane in the cup for instance and drew at Boro and won at Watford. We should have enough to beat them but we may need to be patient. I can’t wait to see it unfold.
Sky Bet Championship
Burnley 0
Leeds United 0
Burnley: Trafford (GK), Esteve, Egan-Riley, Brownhill (C) (Hannibal 90+2’), Anthony, Humphreys, Roberts, Foster (Sarmiento 74’), Flemming, Cullen, Laurent. Subs not used: Hladky (GK), Worrall, Rodriguez, Egan, Pires, Koleosho, Barnes.
Leeds: Meslier (GK), Bogle, Ampadu (C), Rodon, James, Piroe (Joseph 71’), Aaronson, Solomon (Ramazani 71’), Tanaka, Byram, Gruev (Guilavogui 92’). Subs not used: Darlow (GK), Firpo, Rothwell, Gnonto, Schmidt, Wober.
Referee: Josh Smith
Booked: Solomon, James, Bogle (Leeds)
Venue: Turf Moor
Attendance: 21,329 (2,283 away)