Leeds United's punch-drunk players must use Palace pain to 'grow up' insists Javi Gracia - Yorkshire Post 15/4/23

JAVI GRACIA grimaced at the sight of his punch-drunk Leeds United side floundering in a desperate 45 minutes of football at Elland Road last Sunday.

Leon Wobschall

Sober reflection in the dressing room afterwards focused on United's frailties in terms of defending set-plays, with much of the working week having been spent on trying to iron out the deficiencies which contributed to a defensive implosion at the hands of Crystal Palace.

With the weekend here, Gracia is keen to move on as he prepares for the arrival of Liverpool on Monday. He is just as anxious for his players to harness the pain they felt after an embarrassing 5-1 home defeat.

The United head coach said: "It's never easy to manage after a defeat like that.

"You live better with the good results, but it's necessary sometimes to feel disappointed to learn to grow up. It's important to feel that experience if you learn from it.

"In this case, the players felt that difficult moment. Now for the rest of the season, I hope it helps us compete better in the coming games.

"Of course, we have to analyse things that happened in the game as nobody can understand how we could change so much from the first half and after playing the second, we have to analyse and improve.

"After the game, we spoke about trying to improve defending set pieces. We played a good first 45 but afterwards, we weren't so aggressive or intense then the spaces appeared and in that moment the quality of Palace players became evident.

"It was hard for us to manage. It was like a boxer when you receive a punch one two three seconds (after) a little bit.

"In three minutes, we conceded two goals and that was the key."

Inactive until Monday, fifth-from-bottom Leeds will be watching results elsewhere this weekend and they will find themselves back in the relegation zone if Everton beat Fulham today and Nottingham Forest overcome Manchester United on Sunday afternoon.

Conversely, results could go in United's favour amid a congested scene at the bottom, but Gracia, for one, will not be getting distracted.

He continued: "It's important to be strong at this moment, but not because now we're at the bottom or one point ahead or behind.

"We just try to focus on ourselves and compete in the way we usually do it.

“If we're faithful with our plans, we have many chances to achieve our target at the end of the season and that's what we're concentrating on, for sure."

United are continuing to assessing centre-half Max Wober, with 10 goals having been shipped in the three matches he has sat out due to a hamstring problem picked up on international duty with Austria.

There are also doubts over some unnamed players involved against Palace, Gracia confirmed.

He said: "We have some players with some different issues and some of them haven't been training. But in the next few days, we'll evaluate them and decide.

"Maybe some of them will be out for at least the next game. Some are those who started against Palace."

One player who will definitely be in the club's match-day squad is Adam Forshaw, who is fit once again, with the schemer being an unused substitute last Sunday.

On Forshaw, whose last appearance was against Newcastle United on New Year's Eve, Gracia commented: "He's coming from a long term injury. It's good news for us to have him back training every day and it's healthy for the group.

"It's a centre midfielder and we don't have many options in that position, so it's good news for all of us."