At half time it looked like we were in for the kind of thrashing we’d been dreading, but after a formation change we came right back into the game, and in the end Manchester City had to be relieved to snatch an injury time winner.

The clouds seemed to be gathering over Daniel Farke as his team arrived in soggy Manchester, though at least the lunchtime rain was abating as kick-off approached. He made five changes to his starting line-up, and only two of them were enforced (by the injuries to Stach and Longstaff). Aaronson, Gudmonsson and Okafor were all dropped.

Justin, Tanaka, Gruev, Gnonto and James were the players who came in, so we were playing with two proper wingers in one of the games when a more solid line-up might have been justified. City were back to full strength after resting a number of key players against Leverkusen in midweek.

Much of Farke’s pre-match comments concerned the need to keep Erling Haaland quiet, and he was at least double-marked for most of the game, which served to keep him pretty quiet. So a big ha ha to all those who triple captained him in fantasy football because they were playing against us. He’s Leeds and he knows he is.

But the obvious problem with this tactic was that more space had to be afforded to the many other talented players at City’s disposal, and so it proved as early as the first minute. Gudmonsson might have been left out because of a number of goals we’ve recently conceded have come from moves down his flank, but that problem remained after Silva sent Nevez down the right.

When his cross came in Foden cleverly directed his shot away from Perri, and it went in off the crossbar, for the fastest goal in the Premier League so far this season. I thought all our pre-match planning must have gone out of the window straight away, but for the next 15 minutes or so we managed quite a bit of possession down their end of the field.

But to cut through a defence of their quality we had to get everything right, and our moves tended to break down because of one misplaced pass. One tactic was to bang a long ball down the right in the hope that Dan James’ pace would get him to the ball first, and when this finally led to a decent chance for Nmecha, he sent it well over the bar.

That was as close as we got in the first half, and as it wore on it was far more likely that City would extend their lead. And after 25 minutes Two excellent blocks from Struijk and Gruev denied Foden and then Gonzalez respectively, but at the expense of a corner. Foden took it and as the ball came back to him he curled a well struck shot towards the far corner, but Perri reacted brilliantly to turn the ball over the bar.

But our keeper didn’t cover himself in quite as much glory from the second corner that resulted, allowing Silva to get in front of him, so he couldn’t prevent Gvardiol turning the ball home from close range. Somehow the goal survived a lengthy VAR check, with the big screens showing Guadiol was onside by the width of a knee. Why they decided that Silva hadn’t fouled Perri was less obvious.

Shortly before the break Perri did well to block a low shot from Gonzalez with his feet, and we could be thankful to go in at half time only two goals down. It looked like being just another of those days, but then a miracle happened and Farke decided to make a tactical change earlier than the 70th minute.

He might have listened to the noise and decided his critics had a point, but he took off Gnonto and James to send Bijol and Calvert-Lewin onto the field, as he switched to a 3-5-2 formation. Suddenly we looked a bit more solid at the back and had a bit more bite up front, as we began the second half in a determined fashion.

Almost immediately Donnarumma came out into a crowd of players so didn’t get much distance on his punch, and he would have been stranded when Ampadu’s shot came in, if one of his defenders hadn’t bailed him out with a good block. And we went one better on 49 minutes when we pulled a goal back.

A pass upfield from Nunes went straight to Gruev, but after Calvert-Lewin tried a turn on the edge of the box he seemed to have knocked the ball too far in front of himself. But when two City defenders got in each other’s way DCL instantly pounced on the lose ball to send it into the back of the net.

Suddenly we had City looking rattled, roared on by the 3,000 Leeds fans who were making most of the atmosphere inside the Emptyhad. It was at this point when we had a stoppage that caused a lot of the post-match discussion, as Donnarumma went down and play was stopped just as Leeds were about to mount another attack.

While he received treatment all ten of the outfield players gathered around Pep, so was the keeper genuinely injured or was it a cynical ploy to cause a ‘time out’ so Pep could get some instructions across and stop our momentum? Was there a signal to the keeper to go down, as he is the one player who can’t be told to leave the field so play can resume?

If Donnarumma did have a dodgy hamstring there was no sign of it for the rest of the game, and I noticed that Farke went over to confront him after the final whisle, for a lively discussion. But initially this break didn’t seem to have put too much of a brake on our revival, as the equaliser came in the 68th minute.

Bogle nodded the ball into Calvert-Lewin’s path, and he was tripped as Gvardiol lunged across in front of him without getting anywhere near the ball. And just as I was cursing Tanaka for putting an easy chance over the bar, I noticed that the referee was pointing to the penalty spot. Nmecha stepped up and although Donnarumma got down to make the save, it came straight back to Nmecha, and this time he made no mistake knocking the ball into the net.

For a while even a win seemed possible as we alternated between putting their defence under pressure and getting all eleven men behind the ball whenever they came forward. There were a couple more changes as Justin was forced off by injury so Gudmundsson got a game after all, and Nmecha was replaced by Okafor, who I think was playing as a striker rather than on the wing.

As time began to run out there were a couple of anxious moments as we struggled to make simple clearances, with Struijk almost slicing the ball into his own net. And I was irritated when Perri banged two clearances far too far downfield, going out at the other end rather than being anywhere close to finding anyone.

At times our defending was a little desperate, and Tanaka produced another of his reckless lunges, this time on Doku as the Belgian began a run down the wing, thankfully missing his opponent altogether. And just as I thought we were going to hold out, ten minutes of injury time were announced.

I was expecting about five! It would have been a real sickner if they had scored right at the end of that period, but at least their goal came in the first of the additional minutes. As City passed the ball across the edge of the area it came to Foden, who found a minute amount of space for a shot, which Perri would have seen very late as it came through a crowd of players.

We still had nine minutes to try and grab another equaliser, so it was a bit surprising that Aaronson was sent on as the final sub (for Tanaka) when Piroe would be the more usual Farke-style choice in such circumstances. But that wasn’t enough, and we had gone down to an heroic defeat, taking much satisfaction from the second half performance if no points.

So will he stick with that 3-5-2 formation that seemed to work so well, even though it means that none of our large collection of wingers will be on the field? We won’t have long to find out, as Chelsea and their impressive away record are coming to Elland Road on Wednesday night.

Photo: Action Images

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