1st February 2025. EFL Championship
As I’ve mentioned a few times before, in my opinion Leeds have been the best team in the Championship this season and we’ve been the best team in every game we’ve played. But, until now, we had never really steamrollered anyone, at least not in the scoreline. Last season we often looked a class act too and we all expected then that we’d hammer someone at some point but it never really happened. Finally, against Cardiff today, a team in good form themselves of late, Leeds put the record straight. At last, everything came right in the same game and the result finally reflected a game that was as one-sided an encounter as you are ever likely to see. This was a huge statement that I’m sure the rest of the division will take notice of.
This was our biggest win for 53 years, 53 years since the great Don Revie side of the early 70s demolished Southampton by the same 7 – 0 scoreline, just a couple of weeks after we similarly outclassed Manchester United 5 – 1. Folks of my age will remember those games fondly, captured forever by the Match of the Day cameras. There were none of the flamboyant flicks and tricks today that we saw from Bremner and Giles in those games of yesteryear but it was just as dominant a performance and maybe, whisper it quietly, an even more efficient one.
Cardiff were simply outplayed and out worked, our relentless press putting the Bluebirds under pressure whenever they had the temerity to try to run with the ball and then, having won it back, we were supremely clinical in front of goal. It was simply a joy to watch from the first minute to the last. Credit where it’s due though for the Bluebirds, they never once resorted to the sort of low block, time wasting tricks we have seen so often from opposition team this season.
Dan James, surely having his best ever season, was once again the early architect of this demolition job. The first saw him latch onto a defence splitting pass from Joel Piroe (who says he’s not a ‘10’!), round the keeper and then keep his composure to set up Brenden Aaronson who steered the ball between a defender’s legs. Next a Piroe one-two with Aaronson and another defence splitting ball gets DJ behind the defence and, as we’ve seen a few times recently, Dan stabbed the ball across goal for Manor Solomon to finish from close range. 2 – 0 at the break and no real signs of the goal avalanche to come.
Early in the new half though, it was Dan James himself getting on the scoresheet. Rothwell to Solomon to Firpo on the left, a delightful little low cross and DJ nipped in to knock the ball into the roof of the net from point blank range. That was five minutes after the break. Another 15 minutes and another goal came. Yet again it was Dan James in the thick of it, racing in to try to finish after a Piroe shot was palmed out by Cardiff keeper Jak Alnwick. Dan was clipped from behind before he could do the deed. Joel Piroe confidently stroked home the penalty. 4 – 0!
At 4 – 0 it was time to think about the next game, another tricky-looking one, at Coventry, time to save some energy and legs for that one. Off came Bogle and James and on came Sam Byram and Willy Gnonto. Wasting no time, Willy had only been on the pitch a minute before he went darting down the right, cut inside, a fired a pin-point accurate shot inside the right post. 5 – 0. More changes for Leeds – on came Mateo Joseph and Ramazani and off went Solomon and Aaronson and then, minutes later, Pascal Struijk was on for Ao Tanaka, a chance to stretch Pascal’s recently strained legs. Everyone inside Elland Road wanted Mateo to score… and he eventually obliged! It was the irrepressible Junior Firpo again, doing on the left what Dan James had been doing on the right. Once again Firpo got round behind the Cardiff back line and sent the ball across into that corridor of uncertainty between Alnwick and his defence. There was Mateo to bundle the ball home. Let’s hope his floodgates now fly open. There was still time for one more as the crowd hollered “We want seven!” Joel Piroe duly obliged as Firpo this time found himself in the centre forward position, perhaps reflecting his recent heroics for the Dominican Republic in that area! He rolled the ball through and Piroe slid the ball home to put us all in a seventh heaven.
It has to be said that Cardiff did fall apart in the later stages, perhaps not surprisingly. I doubt Coventry will be allowed to fail as badly in front of our old mate Frank Lampard on Wednesday. But, a quick look at the statistics show that, in many respects this was a game very similar to most of our home games this season, in almost all of which we have dominated the stats and limited the opposition to, well, to almost nothing but, for whatever reason, we hadn’t been able to reflect our total domination in the scoreline until today. Today Leeds fashioned a whopping 29 goal attempts, an expected goals figure of 5.73, 12 shots on target and 14 corners. Cardiff had just 2 shots all game, both saved by Meslier, (one straightforward and one excellent) and just a single corner. Leeds had 41 touches in the Cardiff area, the Bluebirds just 3 in ours. Yes, we’ve seen figures like this a few times at Elland Road, but today the scoreline pretty much perfectly reflected them.
It was an almost flawless performance built on that relentless desire to win the ball back anytime we lost it and then attacking with pace and outwitting an admittedly dodgy looking Cardiff defence. But, at the end of the day we only got three points for it even though the boost to our already superior goal difference might one day be important. The big thing for me though is that, yet again, Leeds have gone into a tricky-looking game and have done exactly what you’d expect a promotion winning team to do, beat a team that is clearly amongst the also rans of the division. Ok, more than you’d expect this time, but you get what I mean. The more we come out of games with routine victories like this, expected victories, the more confident we’ll all be that we can manage to do this for the rest of the season and, if we can, then surely promotion awaits.
It is hard to believe we can suddenly come up against a team that can dominate us enough to cause us too many problems when it’s not happened all season – and I include the three games we lost in that too – we were the better side in the games against Burnley, Millwall and Blackburn, we just didn’t quite find the target often enough in those games. With everyone currently fit (Bamford apart) even the odd injury should not cause us too much trouble – Willy Gnonto, Largie, Pascal, Ilia are all just as capable as the men they could easily replace. We are in good shape, very good shape.
Man of the Match today folks? I’ve gone for Dan James, but only by a whisker from Junior Firpo. They were both irresistible today.
Sky Bet Championship
Leeds United 7 (Aaronson 6’, Solomon 13’, James 50’, Piroe 65’ pen, 90+5’, Gnonto 67’, Joseph 88’)
Cardiff City 0
Leeds: Meslier (GK), Bogle (Byram 66’), Firpo, Ampadu (C), Rodon, James (Gnonto 66’), Rothwell, Piroe, Aaronson (Joseph 71’), Solomon (Ramazani 71’), Tanaka (Struijk 78’). Subs not used: Darlow (GK), Guilavogui, Wöber, Gruev.
Cardiff: Alnwick (GK), Goutas, Daland (Bagan 57’), Ralls (C) (Mannsverk 68’), O’Dowda (Fish 81’), Chambers, Robertson, El Ghazi (Salech 57’), Rinomhota, Ashford (Ng 68’), Robinson. Subs not used: Horvath (GK), Willock, Colwill, Reindorf.
Referee: Michael Salisbury
Booked: Rinomhota, O’Dowda (Cardiff)
Venue: Elland Road
Attendance: 35,810 (1,214)