Leeds United league winner on costly unfixed Whites issue, club accounts and 'delay' warning - YEP 12/4/23

I am just astounded by Leeds United's 5-1 defeat to Crystal Palace on Sunday, writes TONY DORIGO.

By Tony Dorigo

It's hard to fathom exactly what happened. I thought we were really good in the first half. We knew how important the game was. Crystal Palace are fighting for their lives but they have got some quality players if you allow them to play. But in the first 35 to 40 minutes I thought we did everything right.

We certainly got on top of them, we got around the back, we had so many chances and the outstanding player of that period was the Palace goalkeeper Sam Johnstone. That says it all. We were playing really well and doing everything that was required.

I suppose the only one or two things that you looked at in the first 40 minutes were that we started giving away silly free kicks and corners and we know that Palace are strong at set pieces. We were very fortunate to get away with one that hit the post.

Eventually we were made to pay but if you said on the balance of play of that first 45 minutes that we were going in all square, I think we were robbed. We should have been ahead but of course you look back to I suppose where we should have improved this season and it's always the case that we need a lot of chances to score our goals

We didn't take our chances, we didn't put the game to bed and then I'm struggling to explain the second half. I'm looking at absolutely everything that went on, I'm looking at the tactics, I'm looking at the players and there wasn't a huge amount of difference.

Of course, the Palace goal just before half-time will clearly mentally have given them a lift and us a drop but that does not explain that performance in the second half. Once the couple of goals went in over a short space of time, it was just hugely disappointing and really unlike the boys because they unfortunately didn't recover from that and actually things got worse and worse and it could have been even worse.

It was one of those 45 minutes of football that I can't explain. Fortunately, they come along very, very infrequently but you have really just got to pick the bones out of it, learn from it and move forward really quickly.

Clearly, Palace played further up the pitch after the break. They didn't allow us to play and rather than being pushed back they got their wide players on the ball and Eberechi Eze was further forward.

But this is a five yard thing, a slight technical tweak and that doesn't then suggest that you are going to concede four in the manner that we did. It's hugely disappointing and I am sure Whites head coach Javi Gracia must be scratching his head as to where that came from because when you look back at the previous game, you can't spot any inkling that something like that was going to happen.

Not only that but I think the boys are a really good, honest bunch of lads but clearly they didn't handle their second half very well at all. Where does the blame lie? I think rather than pointing fingers I think they all need to sit down, analyse what went wrong and how it went wrong.

I suppose the good thing in sport and in football as I always used to find out is that when you do have a bad loss you have got another opportunity to turn it around pretty quickly. The only thing is that we have to wait until Monday night rather than the Saturday or the Sunday but I think they'll be working extremely hard and licking their wounds this week and hopefully they will double down on their determination to put it right.

I have been through lots of games where you win by six or seven and then you have a real bad defeat and what have you. It's always about keeping a balance and keeping an equilibrium. Just because you win by seven doesn't mean you win by seven every week and when you lose that isn't a fair reflection.

But you've got to get it right. You've got to look and analyse what went wrong and then, collectively, get on with it. Myself in the column and others will write a lot of different things but I think the most important thing is that the boys know exactly what's required.

They know they let themselves down in that second half, they will be doubly determined not to do that again but you look at their recent performances under Javi Gracia, how well they have done and played and the points picked up. Overall, that's where we are at, not that last 45 minutes.

Clearly, if Leeds play like they did in the second half then we are in a heap of trouble. But I don't see that happening and I think we will still be okay. Will we be comfortable? No, that isn't the way we do things.

I still think we'll be okay but certainly that second half is a huge kick up the backside and we can be under no illusions that it's going to be a fight right to the very end. This league has been crazy, it really has. We are in April here, we are coming towards the business end of the season and at one point it was looking like we could go five or six points behind Chelsea thinking 'wow, this is going to be incredible.'

Now we are looking below us again and I think it's actually a mixture of those two in that we didn't get three points and that's the end of it, it's no worse than that. What we can't allow is for that to then fester and build into something bigger.

For me, that second half was an aberration. We need to quickly learn from it, move on and get back to doing what we did best. I look back at that Forest performance and others and I think there was plenty enough there to suggest we'll be okay but that 45 minutes was undoubtedly a worry.

The club's accounts also came out at the weekend and this is now such an important period in the history of the club, it really is, because you look at the riches that the Premier League has on offer. I think you look at the debt levels of a lot of other clubs and, from that point of view, we're actually doing rather well. And then you look at the opportunities going forward.

You look at what could be and what could be on the horizon with the redevelopment of the stadium et cetera, et cetera, With the new owners coming, there's a lot of big positives that are quite close. However, it is pivotal that we do stay in the Premier League so as good as those accounts actually look - even though there was a loss there - it's hugely important what's about to happen.

These next eight games really could shape whether we get to where we want to a lot quicker or whether we are going to be delayed. I don't like delays.