17th August 2024. EFL Championship.
I’m aware that much of the Leeds United social media is castigating the team, the manager, and the club after what many describe as a bore fest of a game at the Hawthorns earlier today and the shambles we saw on Wednesday. But I’m going to portray a much more positive picture than that. At any time, certainly in recent years, a trip to the Hawthorns is always a tough gig and especially since Carlos Corberan has been at their helm. So, to come away from there with a clean sheet and a point is, in my eyes at least, a good performance.
Add in the fact that, after last week beating QPR comfortably, many commentators were tipping West Brom to have a good season and the fact that this was our first league game without Georginio and I think that elevates the achievement even more. It will take time and, more importantly, some incoming transfers, to get us back on an even keel.
Leeds were no worse nor better than the Albion this afternoon, both sides looked to lack any creativity and, as the match wore on I thought the Albion degenerated into a one trick team, lofting the ball forward – often straight into touch like a half decent rugby union side! Some of their challenges come to think of it resembled the egg-shaped ball way of doing things too and another poor refereeing performance from another poor referee, didn’t help matters at all. The match stats are almost identical between the two sides with 8 shots apiece and a solitary strike on target from each, while Albion dominated the possession but achieved no more with it than we did. It was not a great advert for the game and neither team looked very sparkly up front or in midfield.
But we have a bit of an excuse! Clearly we do not have that creative spark that used to be provided by Georginio and by Cree Summerville at times before that. The club I am sure knows that they have to replace that and it will only come from some astute work in the transfer market in the next two weeks. We will need two wide players too as we cannot contemplate trying to go through a season with only Dan and Willy who can play that role. So, to some extent, I was expecting us to find this game, the first without that midfield vision and magic, to be far more difficult than it was.
So, overall I came away happy, knowing and accepting those circumstances. Whether the Albion are still looking at the market I’m not sure – probably not since they were placed under an EFL-imposed business plan recently as they were on course to breach the PSR – but if not, then I’d expect Leeds to have a better balanced and more penetrative side by the end of the window. We surely have the money now to attract a decent level of quality without ourselvses falling foul of the PSR and now that the Premier League squads are sorted and players know where they stand, this is a good time to be fishing in the market place, it’s probably why we’ve seemed to leave it so late to replenish our stock of players.
The one aspect probably most pleasing to Daniel Farke today was that we got through the game without offering any gift-wrapped chances this week. Defensively we have looked very flaky in the opening two games, one with our assumed best back five in place, and one without. Today we were much better and again remember that the Albion are supposed to be a strong contender this season.
In midfield and up front we were clearly lacking and I don’t think the decision to replace Georginio with Joel Piroe did us any favours in that respect – surely Brenden Aaronson would have given us more vision in there or Joe Rothwell would have given us more solidity if that was our aim. Whatever, we got through and we got the point and we have to accept that a similar target is possibly the most sensible aim for next Friday at Hillsborough if we’ve not brought in those reinforcements by then which is of course possible. To an extent we are treading water until then. So, for those outspokenly criticising the club at the moment, how about seeing how the window turns out first eh? That's what I'm going to do.
West Bromwich Albion 0
Leeds United 0
WBA: Palmer (GK), Furlong, Bartley (C), Ajayi, Molumby (Diakite 90’), Maja (Dobbin 85’), Swift (Diangana 85’), Heggem, Grant (Wallace 75’), Mowatt, Fellows. Subs not used: Wildsmith (GK), Taylor, McNair, Frabotta, Cole.
Leeds: Meslier (GK), Bogle, Firpo, Ampadu (C), Struijk, Rodon, James (Aaronson 64’), Piroe (Rothwell 64’), Joseph (Bamford 79’), Gnonto, Gruev. Subs not used: Darlow (GK), Byram, Gelhardt, Debayo, Wober, Crew.
Venue: The Hawthorns
Attendance: 25,329.
Referee: Sam Allison
Booked: Swift, Ajayi (WBA) Bogle, Firpo (Leeds)