28th September 2024. EFL Championship
There is no doubt that the fixture schedule has been kind to Leeds so far this season – four of our opening seven league games have been against sides in the bottom seven places in the current table; teams that I think we can already class as ‘poor’, teams that will surely struggle all season. The thing is though, these were precisely the sorts of teams we struggled to beat last season. We could beat Ipswich and Leicester but found Cardiff, Birmingham, Stoke, Sheffield Wednesday and Rotherham far more troublesome. This time around, that weird game against Pompey excepted, we’ve seen off the rest very comfortably indeed with none of these lowly teams finding the net against us. In fact, we’ve only conceded once since that opening day goal fest and that was against Burnley in a game that most observers reckoned we dominated, with only our wayward finishing letting us down in that one. No such problems today though. Leeds at last seem to be following the form book and not destroying it!
I could probably argue that Leeds have bossed every league game we’ve played this season (I won’t mention the Boro cup game!) apart from a fairly even contest with West Brom. Too often though our finishing has been poor and the score has seldom reflected our dominance in the games. Today I can’t really fault our finishing although we have to give visiting keeper Ben Wilson a mention; we peppered him with shots on target in the first half and he pulled off three world class saves. But We got an early goal and that seemed to settle us perfectly. It was a fine goal too; one thing about this Leeds team is that we seldom score a scruffy goal do we?
This time it was started with a simple diagonal pass from Rodon to Aaronson on the left and he slid the ball through the Coventry back line into the path of Junior Firpo. Quick as a flash Junior picked out Willy Gnonto on the edge of the area with a precise, first-time pass across the turf and Willy finished with a sublime strike, guiding the ball effortlessly beyond the grasping reach of Wilson into the top of the net.
It seemed to knock the stuffing out of the Sky Blues and, for the rest of the half, they were under the cosh and unable to get any sort of a foothold in the game. Leeds dominated and, but for the efforts of Wilson who saved brilliantly from Gruev, Ramazani and Mateo Joseph, Leeds would have had a hatful of goals. Indeed the only blemish on a perfect half of football was a serious-looking injury to Ethan Ampadu. He was replaced by Ao Tanaka though and we hardly noticed the difference.
Leeds scored a second within four minutes after the break and, if the opening goal didn’t break Coventry’s resolve, this one probably did. It was another sumptuous goal. Jayden Bogle marauding down the right played the ball inside to Ramazani and he took one touch before playing a delightful disguised pass through that overworked Coventry back line and back into the path of the overlapping Bogle; he side-footed the ball inside the far post with Wilson just laying gloves on it but unable to keep it out.
For whatever reason, Leeds then took their collective feet off the gas and, truth be told, Coventry enjoyed the bulk of the second half possession but they failed to create hardly anything of danger close to the Leeds goal and Leeds seemed happy to play on the counter which we did to perfect effect in the 79th minute when Joel Piroe, coming on only 9 minutes earlier, was on the spot to complete the rout much as he did at Cardiff last week. Ao Tanaka lofted the ball ‘a la Ethen Ampadu’ down the right for Willy Gnonto to sprint onto and his precise cross was met by Piroe who steered it home with a bit of a helping hand from Wilson. In fact, good as his first half saves were, there is at least a question mark over his keeping for the two second-half Leeds goals!
Coventry did come close with a late strike from the dangerous Thomas Asante, a late substitute, (I can’t understand why he didn’t start for them, he’s hurt us before!) who thundered a shot towards the top corner only for Illan Meslier to fly through the air to tip that one over to preserve another well-deserved clean sheet.
So, another totally dominant display from Leeds, another clean sheet, and some great goals. OK, against a better team, the backing off we saw in the second half might cause us some issues but defensively Leeds were again solid and error free. The failure yet again to make anything out of another seven corners remains an issue we surely need to resolve - it's something like 150 consecutive corners now since we scored from one! Another poor referee also threatened to spoil the game as yet again we saw often random decision making! There is no doubt the standard of refereeing the Championship is far, far below that we see in the Prem. For once though, that was of no consequence.
This is a good run of results, albeit mostly against poor teams and we are building momentum and confidence. If we can emerge from the trips to Norwich and Sunderland next week without any damage then things will look very good indeed.
Sky Bet Championship
Leeds United 3 (Gnonto 16’, Bogle 49’, Piroe 79’)
Coventry City 0
Leeds: Meslier (GK), Bogle, Firpo (Byram 82’), Ampadu (C) (Tanaka 41’), Struijk, Rodon, Aaronson, Ramazani (Piroe 70’) Joseph (Rothwell 82’), Gnonto (Schmidt 82’), Gruev. Subs not used: Darlow (GK), Bamford, Byram, Gelhardt, Debayo.
Coventry: Wilson (GK), van Ewijk, Latibeaudiere, Thomas, Kitching, Dasilva, Sheaf (C) (Wright 61’), Eccles, Rudoni (Torp 83’), Mason-Clark (Sakamoto 61’), Simms (Thomas-Asante 61’). Subs not used: Dovin (GK), Binks, Bidwell, Andrews, Bassette.
Venue: Elland Road
Attendance: 36.625
Referee: Gavin Ward
Booked: Rodon (Leeds) Latibeaudiere (Coventry)