7th December 2024. EFL Championship
I finally got a score prediction right for this game and so that means Leeds did exactly what they were expected to do; comfortably beat another bang average Championship side at Elland Road with our now signature score of 2 – 0. Derby came to Elland Road with the 4th worst away record in the division while Leeds were right up there with the best of home records. All logic said Leeds ought to win this one and 2 – 0 has often been the best we can achieve no matter how much we dominate games.
And Derby were very much bang average, perhaps even worse than average. It was telling that, after the match, Derby manager Paul Warne told the BBC: “Every single one of their players is quicker than ours. I don't know, apart from being tidier on the ball, how we were going to create a chance - I know that sounds negative, but that's the truth.” In fact they managed just three shots all game and only one that found the target (in the 80th minute) and it was easily dealt with by the largely unemployed Illan Meslier. Warne is not the first visiting manager to effectively admit his own team was way behind ours in all aspects. From the first moments in the game Derby tried to slow things down, take an age over any restart and generally try to limit the ball in play time; they never attempted to play their own game. It’s becoming a regular MO of visiting teams. The only annoyance, yet again, was that we could only find two goals to show for our dominance of the match, and they came from two defenders.
Both Joe Rodon and Max Wober scored their first goals in Leeds colours and, in the case of Joe, it was apparently only his second ever senior goal in a competitive game. Joe’s classic downward header came from a Joe Rothwell right wing corner while Max got on the end of a Brenden Aaronson cut-back that was deflected into his path; he stabbed it home from six yards out. Max was only on the pitch due to an early injury to Junior Firpo who had been pronounced a doubt for the game during Daniel Farke’s press conference.
The goals came in the 39th and 44th minutes and, until then, despite bossing the possession to the tune of more than 80%, all Leeds had to show for it was a couple of shots from Aaronson and another header from Joe Rodon. Once again it looked as though what we were missing was the sort of spark of individual brilliance that was provided last season by Georginio Rutter or Cree Summerville. Dan James was involved in the build up to the Wober goal and he now and again can produce such moments, but elsewhere on the pitch we do struggle to turn possession into chances. Once again Aaronson was doing his best to push through the Derby back line but too often he was brushed off the ball before his efforts came to anything and he continues to give the impression that he is just too lightweight at this level albeit his was effectively the assist for the second goal.
Leeds did continue to press for more goals in the second half but it was not a great watch and very few openings were created. When we did have a sight of goal, the Derby keeper, Jacob Zetterström, performed heroics for the visitors. Dan James, Ao Tanaka and Joel Piroe all had goal bound efforts well saved.
Overall it was another comfortable victory and, at the end of the day, that’s all we need to keep doing. Yes, it would be nice to bag a few more goals when we are so completely in charge of a game but while we keep churning out the results it can only be an observation rather than a major criticism. We have found ourselves to be similarly lacking in potency when we play some of the better teams of course and, when they get a goal ahead, we have on three occasions not had sufficient guile to score ourselves despite bossing the game. It is annoying but I think it’s now something we are going to have to accept from this group of players. They are good enough usually to grind out a result but perhaps not good enough to embroider our results with boatloads of goals.
On Tuesday we face a Middlesbrough team that we have to acknowledge is amongst the better teams in this division – along with Sunderland, Sheffield United, Burnley, The Albion, and Blackburn. We’ve only managed to beat one of those teams so far this season of course and Boro humbled us on our own patch in the Carabao Cup back in August. This will be another huge test and will give us another useful pointer as to exactly how good we are, I firmly believe we are the best all round team in the Championship but we have to keep proving it and we have to start beating the better sides as well as the dross.
Leeds United 2 (Rodon 39’, Wober 44’)
Derby County 0
Leeds: Meslier (GK), Bogle, Firpo (Wober 21’), Struijk (C), Rodon, James (Ramazani 85’), Rothwell (Guilavogui 85’), Piroe, Aaronson (Joseph 68’), Solomon (Gnonto 68’), Tanaka. Subs not used: Darlow (GK), Ampadu, Bamford, Schmidt.
Derby: Zetterstrom (GK), Wilson (Ward 81’), Forsyth, Cashin, Osborn, Yates (Collins 81’), Mendez-Laing (C) (Harness 65’), Phillips, Thompson (Barkhuizen 81’), Jackson (Goudmijn 65’), Nelson. Subs not used: Vickers (GK), Bradley, Blackett-Taylor, Brown.
Venue: Elland Road
Attendance: 36,468 (2,838 away)
Referee: Matthew Donohue
Booked: Jackson (Derby)