Once again Leeds dominated the possession, this time against Blackburn Rovers, but once again the final score wasn’t as emphatic as it should have been.
Marcelo Bielsa acknowledged this in his post-match press conference. "We have shown superiority, we received just one shot on our goal. After we scored twice, we had 10 or 12 chances. In the first and the second half we had a lot of spaces to attack and we didn’t take advantage of that as much as we should.”
"(At two-nil) it was difficult to think that the opponent could score, but after when they scored, everything has changed. When you win, more than be happy, you are calm.” And he also praised
Patrick Bamford for having the courage to step up to take the penalty despite his recent drought in front of goal.
"I think this player is a big character, a big personality. He took the responsibility to score again and it wasn’t easy for him.” Bamford got his chance after a couple of players have missed spot kicks in recent times, first Hernandez, and then Klich, who seems to have been demoted from this particular role after his costly error against Derby when he sent his over-confident effort wide of the post.
And much as Bamford was relieved to score, his penalty wasn’t particularly well placed, it was some way from the corner of the goal and the keeper could well have saved it if he’d gone the right way. The opportunity arrived when Leeds were having trouble breaking Blackburn down, and it was given after Ayling was impeded in the box.
And not surprisingly, visiting boss Tony Mowbray was less than impressed by the decision. "I've seen it back a few times, it's soft to say the best and never a penalty to say the worst - I think the context in which the penalty was given didn't fit in with the rest of the game.”
"It's not the first one, is the standard dropping? Is it really poor in the Championship this year or is it just me? It feels as if that game was a bit too much for him today but it also feels harsh on a young guy making a living through being a referee.” Said Mowbray rather patronisingly.
It’s not hard to see the penalty as the big turning point, given that we got the second a few minutes later. A long Crossfield ball from Phillips found Bamford, who did well to bring it down an bring in Harrison, whose shot went in off the far post. At that point we thought we might have gone on to give Rovers a right good hiding, but it never happened.
Instead Rovers again scored against us from a corner, as they did twice in the game at Ewood Park last season. And again it came from one of their big men making a late run into our box, taking advantage of the lack of height in our defence. Mowbray said after that game it was a plan he has against us, so you would have thought that the meticulous Bielsa would have found a way to counter that tactic by now.
In the second half it was the same old story of Leeds having by far the better share of possession but failing to capitalise. Harrison was guilty of wasteful finishing on more than one occasion, though at least Helda Costa woke up and started to get involved. One worrying moment was the injury to Cooper, but word is that it wasn’t too serious, and given the international break, the chances are that he will be back for our next game at Luton.
Blackburn offered very little at the other end so we took the points comfortably enough, though there wasn’t much change at the top of the table, on a day when our rivals for promotion were all up against our rivals geographically. Only the Wendies came close to doing us a favour by taking a point off Swansea, but the Dog Botherers and the Dullards both lost, to Preston and WBA respectively.
So our failure to beat Preston a few weeks ago looks even more annoying than it did at the time. Bamford was the scapegoat for his misses on that occasion, but let’s hope that now he’s finally got on the scoresheet he will now go on a run of goalscoring, so we can finally start to turn our dominance of game after game into goals.