It’s not a game that will live long in the memory, but Leeds had plenty of the game against Newcastle United, and just couldn’t find that bit of quality up front that might have sealed a win.
Daniel Farke made two changes from the eleven who started our last league match at Arsenal. One was enforced, with Longstaff replacing the injured Tanaka for an emotional match against the club he served for so long. The other saw Nmecha preferred to Piroe as the lone striker, to give us a bit more of a physical presence up front.
The first half saw plenty of effort from both sides, and Longstaff was giving no quarter against his former team mates, looking keen to let them know what they were missing. Nmecha held the ball up well and Gnonto was lively cutting in from the left, but a lot of the time the team didn’t quite seem to be on the same wavelength, as a few moves broke down when a misplaced pass lost possession.
Not that Newcastle offered a great deal more up front, and you could say it was a good time to play them. As well as the Issac situation they had Gordon suspended, and they hadn’t completed the signing of new striker Nick Woltemade in time for him to be eligible for this fixture.
We had a couple of long range shots from Stach going wide, and an excellent cross from Gonto which Nmecha just failed to reach. Possibly our best chance of the half came from a deeper cross from Gudmundsson, which James might have done better with if Bogle hadn’t put him off by lunging for the ball in front of him.
At the other end Gudmundsson got a vital touch to a shot from Osula, taking the pace of it and allowing Perri to make the save. There was another deflected shot which looped just over the bar, but the closest the visitors came to scoring so was just before the break, when Murphy’s shot was well struck, but thankfully almost straight at Perri.
In the early stages of the second half Perri had more to do to deny Murphy, with the ball swerving away from him, but managed to get across to make the save. On the hour Farke made his first two changes, and I thought Gnonto was unlucky to be taken off, apart from the fact he’d been booked. James had been less effective on the opposite flank, and the pair were replaced by Harrison and Aaronson.
Ten minutes later Calvert-Lewin replaced the hard working Nmecha, and suddenly our attack seemed to carry a bit more threat, with his striker’s instinct taking him into all the right areas. He also has an understanding with Harrison from their two years together at Everton, as seen with Harrison’s long ball downfield from the left to send Calvert-Lewin racing through on goal.
But there was too much pace on the ball for Calvert-Lewin to control it first time, and a heavy first touch allowed Pope to race off his line and claim the ball. Though even if Calvert-Lewin had scored, the goal might not have survived a VAR check for offside, as it did look pretty close. Calvert-Lewin did manage to get a shot on target late on, but Pope managed to get his foot to our man’s well struck shot from a difficult angle.
Our final change was enforced, with Gudmundsson limping off to give Justin his Leeds debut, but the injury didn’t look to be anything serious. We couldn’t find the spark we needed to snatch a win in the closing stages, but we’d given a good account of ourselves, and we got the point we needed to steady ourselves at the end of a difficult week.
Should we be concerned that we have yet to score from open play in the Premier League, despite the amount of possession we’ve enjoyed around our opponents’ area in both home games? We can see why the club wanted to sign Buonanotte to give us that bit of creativity to open up tight defences, and it may be they will be able to land an alternative in the last 48 hours of the window.
On the other hand, we might be OK once Okafor and Calvert-Lewin have regained their fitness, provided of course they avoid any further injuries! All in all we can be satisfied with a return of four points from our opening three games, and we can look forward to a slightly easier run of fixtures after the international break. We just need to make our possession count when those games come round.