Leeds produced an unexpected comeback in the second half to pinch a point from Chelsea, once again showing the qualities we will need to battle our way to safety in our first season back in the Premier League.
Daniel Farke made three changes to his starting line-up. Two of them were enforced, due to Calvert-Lewin’s illness and Struik’s injury, while Okafor dropped to the bench as the manager opted for a more defensive line-up. In came Bijol and Bornauw to shore up the defence, with Nmecha recalled as the lone striker in a 4-5-1 formation.
We also had Bogle in a forward position on the right with Justin as the wing-back behind him, which will appease those who admire Bogle’s qualities going forward but don’t rate him as a defender. Presumably James wasn’t used in that position as either he’s not yet fit enough for 90 minutes, or Farke wanted a more defensive option for this difficult away fixture.
We started brightly, getting forward on a number of occasions early on, but without causing the Chelsea defence any great concern. And the home side began to dominate proceedings, with Palmer sitting behind their forward line, with none of our side quite sure who should be picking him up. Perhaps either Ampadu or Gruev could have done a man marking job, but our rather rigid formation played it’s part in giving Chelsea the space to take the lead in the 24th minute.
A ball out of defence found Palmer sitting between our two lines of midfielders and defenders, giving him the time he needed to play a perfect through ball to find Pedro’s run, as Bornauw failed to track the striker. And as Darlow raced out to meet him, Pedro executed a perfect ‘dink’ over the top of him to put the home side in front.
Perhaps the closest we got to scoring in the first half was when Gudmundsson came into the area and went down after a couple of tugs on his shirt, but the officials decided that the contact shouldn’t have been enough to send him over. I’m not sure who would have taken a penalty in any case, as at that moment Nmecha was down needing treatment, after taking a knock in the build up.
Thankfully the ref didn’t think Gudmundsson had made a clear and obvious dive, as he was one of a number of players on a yellow card, as the official was keen on collecting names in what was never a dirty game. God knows what he would have made of some of the more brutal encounters between the clubs in the 1970s.
I thought at that stage that somebody was bound to get a second yellow before the night was through, but that never happened. Chelsea went close to a second goal before half time when another Palmer through ball found Pedro, but this time with his back to goal. The Brazilian managed to turn and shoot, but didn’t quite have his bearings and sent the ball just wide.
And just before the break Palmer was stopped in his tracks by an excellent last ditch tackle by Justin. One of those which had to be perfectly timed, and it was. The home side continued to dominate as the second half began, with Estêvão shooting just wide, so a change was needed. Bornauw had been struggling as was replaced by Okafor, with a more positive outlook needed now we were behind.
But a few minutes later we were further behind. A long ball into the area found Pedro going away from goal, but Bijol inexplicably pushed him in the back with both hands, in a carbon copy of one of the penalties Chelsea got at Wolves on Saturday. Palmer made no mistake with the resulting penalty, as Darlow went the wrong way.
That seemed to have sealed the game, but on 67 minutes Chelsea returned the favour by gifting us an equally unnecessary penalty of our own. Justin went down the wing and slipped the ball inside to Bogle, and as our man made his way into the area he was updended by a clumsy challenge from Caicedo, with the Chelsea man getting nowhere near the ball.
Nmecha stepped up and smashed the ball into the corner of the net, and suddenly we were back in the game, as the atmosphere and momentum abruptly shifted. If both penalties were clear-cut, the most controversial moment of the night was still to come. That came when Bogle controlled a high bouncing ball with his thigh, accidentally knocking it onto his elbow before he turned and continued his run.
Sánchez came out and knocked him over, but neither the keeper nor Acheampong managed to deal with the loose ball, and in the chaos Nmecha was able to knock it to the unmarked Okafor.
Okafor was able to knock it into the empty net, but while he was celebrating in front of the noisy away section of the crowd, the inevitable VAR check was taking place.
But they concluded that they couldn’t disallow the goal under the present guidelines, as the ball had deflected onto Bogle’s elbow from another part of his body before he had time to react, and he wasn’t the goal scorer. So the goal correctly stood, whatever Rosenior might have said during his post-match winge.
At that stage we might have had hopes of going on to win the game, but Chelsea woke up and started to put us under pressure once again. They were never going to be satisfied with a draw from this game in their efforts to get back into the top four, and it showed. So our next sub was a little bit surprising, with James coming on for Nmecha.
Certainly Nmecha had struggled to hold the ball up in the way Calvert-Lewin does and James would be more than handy if we got a quick break, but it left us with no specialist central strikers on the field. I thought at this stage it was more of a priority to give the back four some extra protection, but that was provided by our final change, with Longstaff coming on for Aaronson.
By now we were anxiously counting down the minutes, but Chelsea went close again when an n inswinging cross found Pedro free at the far post. But he had to reach for it, and could only send it onto the top of the crossbar and over. The home fans were howling at Darlow for taking his time over every goal kick, and six minutes of injury time were announced, which would include our biggest let-off of the night.
A one-two sent Caicedo racing down the right hand side of the area, but when it came through to Palmer at the far post, the England international somehow sent the ball over the bar from a couple of yards out. He has been getting pelters for this miss, but the TV replay has shown that it did bounce awkwardly just before it got to him, to a height when he could only get to it with his shin.
We saw out the remaining time with no further alarms, to claim another valuable point in the battle to stay up. In truth we scored with our only two clear-cut chances of the whole game, but that compensates a little for all the games in the autumn when we didn’t get the results our overall play deserved.
Elsewhere our friends from Old Trafford gave West Ham a draw, so the gap to third bottom stubbornly remains at only six points. But at least other teams are being dragged into the battle, to give us other options for avoiding the drop. In today’s least surprising news, we learned that Thomas Frank has been sacked by Spurs, as the shame of going below little old us in the table was the final straw.
It’s a sad day, because he was doing such a great job. It might mean that Spurs will now get a new manager bounce to take themselves out of trouble, but whatever happens around us, I’m now confident that with the spirit we’re now showing we can get enough points to get to safety by the end of the season.