20th September 2023, Championship.
There isn’t much to be said about this game really. We all know that we did enough in the first half to have wrapped the game up had we just been able to find the net with the chances we created or at least create better chances from the amount of ball we enjoyed. It seems to be a recurring theme that we sometimes just cannot convert our game dominance into goals. At the end of the day though, having to play the final half-hour with ten men, I was delighted with the point as it would have been so easy to let them in to steal all three points.
It wasn’t so much this time that our shooting was poor – apart from the one one-on-one chance squandered by Rutter that he really ought to have buried – it was largely down to two brilliant saves from debutant Hull keeper Ryan Allsop. He twice denied excellent strikes from Crysencio Summerville. It is another recurring theme of our season that keepers seem to excel against us for some reason. Other shots we had were well-blocked by defenders.
Hull really offered very little – no shots on target in the whole game - and it was another case of Leeds being far and away the better side but just not finding the net. In the end, Lady Luck played a part but thankfully she was pretty even-handed. Leeds were hard done by to lose Joe Rodon – the second yellow was soft in the extreme having looked at various replays – but equally, we have to thank Lady Luck or maybe Adama Traore for missing the sitter of the season in the final minute of normal time when he struck the right-hand post with the whole goal at his mercy.
Overall, defensively Leeds were again very solid, and once again there were very few mistakes made such as we were regularly making at the start of the season. Three clean sheets on the bounce in the Championship is a rare thing indeed.
Three points against Watford on Saturday to leave us on 13 points from 8 games would be a very satisfactory start to the season, especially bearing in mind how late we got to start putting this campaign together. It’s a case of so far so good in my opinion and I’ve yet to see us play a side better than us so far.
Sky Bet Championship
Hull City 0
Leeds United 0
Hull: Allsop (GK), Coyle (C) (McLoughlin 88’), Greaves, Jones, Delap (Tufan 72’), Jaden, Seri, Slater (Traore 81’), Twine (Morton 72’), Christie (Lokilo 81’), Connolly. Subs not used: Ingram (GK), Vinagre, Allahyar, Smith.
Leeds: Meslier (GK), Ayling (C) (Byram 90’), Ampadu, Piroe (Cooper 63’), Rodon, Shackleton, James (Anthony 63’), Struijk, Gray, Rutter, Gnonto (Summerville 21’). Subs not used: Darlow (GK), Kamara, Poveda, Gelhardt, Gruev.
Venue: MKM Stadium
Attendance: 24,221
Referee: Stephen Martin
Booked: Twine, Connolly, Jaden (Hull)
Rodon, Ampadu, Ayling (Leeds) Sent-off: Rodon (Leeds)