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Monk admits Leeds not clinical enough at Barnsley
Sunday, 22nd Jan 2017 13:34 by Tim Whelan

Our good run came to an end at Barnsley yesterday, and Garry Monk thinks it was all because we didn’t take the chance to finish them off once we’d taken the lead.

Leeds went in front after 18 minutes, as Wood took advantage of some slack marking from a corner to bundle the ball in off a post, with the ball seeming to come off his knee. The goal came a little against the run of play, as Barnsley had enjoyed the better of the game up to that point, but then we seemed to be turning in another dominant performance, to continue our good form.

We continued to look dangerous from set pieces and a header from Wood was cleared off the line, while Doukara produced a good save from Davies. But the turning point came just before half time as Bradshaw headed the equaliser for Barnsley. And after half time it was a different game, as Leeds struggled to cope with the pace and energy shown by Barnsley’s young side.

They took the lead thanks to a brilliant turn from Kent, followed by a shot across Green into the far corner. And it was 3-1 after Roofe collided with Scowen outside the area, and Hourihane curled an excellent free kick round the wall and into the top corner of the net. Unusually for Leeds we were getting over-run in midfield, and Coyle was occasionally looking a bit unsteady at right back.

Vieira had been by-passed by much of the game, and he was the first to be removed from the action, to be replaced by O’Kane after 58 minutes. We got a lifeline due to a handball from MacRoberts, although the TV replays showed that the offence had been just outside the box. But Wood calmly stepped up and smashed the penalty home to bring the score back to 3-2.

Bridcutt was replaced by Dallas in the 84th as we chased the game, but I was surprised that Antonsson remained on the bench with the third substitution unused right to the end. If he’s not going to come on as a second striker when we desperately need a goal, then when is he going to get a game?

Roofe spurned our best chance of the closing stages when he sliced a shot wide of the post. It looked a bad miss, but the replay showed a defender had managed a vital touch before it came to him, deflecting the ball towards Roofe, so he never had the chance to hit it cleanly. After Dallas also wide in our last attack of the game it was all over.

This was our first defeat in nine games in the league, yet it means we slip below Huddersfield into fourth place, while the top two both won to leave us nine points short of the automatic promotion slots. It’s almost time to concede that the best we’re going to do this season is to ensure that we manage to qualify for the play-offs.

After the game Garry Monk told the official site “I’m disappointed with the result, especially for our travelling fans who came here in big numbers and were very vocal in their support towards the team. In the first ten minutes we expected Barnsley to come out full throttle at us and we weathered that period pretty well.”

“We got the goal and I think the critical moment was that we didn’t get the second, we had a couple of chances and I felt a clear penalty on Kyle Bartley that could have made it 2-0 to us. It was unlike us and how we have been, we were slightly off defensively tonight to the levels that we have been reaching and we paid for it with the goals we conceded. On another day we could have got a result, we weren’t clinical enough in both boxes tonight.”

It was a disappointing evening both on and off the field, with the first Leeds goal accompanied by a bit of bother in two of the home stands, while some of those in the corner of our section tried to get across and see if they could ‘help’. It’s been suggested that it was all down to Barnsley fans objecting to the presence of some of us in their midst, who had managed to get tickets for home sections of Oakwell despite the selling restrictions Barnsley had imposed for this fixture.

There are also reports of some bother in Barnsley town centre after the game, and in my ‘Awaydaze’ piece I said I was surprised that this particular game had been allowed to kick off at 5.30 and offer the opportunity for all-day drinking before the game. We may not have heard the last of this, and if there is any sort of official investigation in the weeks to come, we’ll have plenty to say about it on here.


Photo: Action Images



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