Leeds United denied fairytale of ‘New York’ by familiar bad guy - Graham Smyth's Rotherham Verdict — YEP 25/11/23
Leeds United were denied a fairytale of New York Stadium by a familiar bad guy, but it wasn't Rotherham United, Lee Peltier or referee Oliver Langford.
By Graham Smyth
Former Whites man Peltier, now 36 and into his second season
at Rotherham United, was caught on camera crunching the leg of Daniel James
with the kind of challenge that can only ever be dealt with by a red card.
Fortunately for the defender Langford and his officials missed it.
Unfortunately for Leeds it took place in the area and would likely have decided
the game, one way or another, in Leeds' favour.
Later, in stoppage time, Leeds were stripped of a winning
goal by an offside flag that went up almost as soon as Patrick Bamford stuck
out a toe to connect with a ball bound for the boot of Jaidon Anthony. Into the
net it went, but not onto the scoreboard. The sarcasm dripped from Daniel Farke
as he spoke after the 1-1 draw of how keen the linesman was to spot Bamford
being two inches offside. Offside is offside, though and besides, there was no
need for Leeds to ever leave this game in the hands of the officials. It was
their own finishing and their own uncomfortable degree of comfort that proved
the bad guy.
Leeds are plenty good enough to go up this season but if
they are to do so then they must learn that when an opponent is down you have
to do whatever it takes to finish them off. This is not the first time since
the campaign began that Leeds have got in their own way and robbed themselves
of a victory their performance deserved, through wastefulness or a lack of
killer instinct. What must have frustrated the life out of Farke was that they
had the three magic beans in the palm of their hand, at 1-0 up and creating
chance after chance, and yet did not make it home with all three.
The manager and his side did not have a comfortable week of
preparation for this one as the international break had its way with their
training schedule, but having come through the summer mess and a mass exodus,
the lack of training time together was a relatively trivial matter to deal
with. It wasn't a night for comfort, anyway, at a Baltic New York Stadium,
against a side scrapping for their Championship lives and playing the according
football.
There was certainly no comfort to be enjoyed by Peltier
against his former side, with Leeds' flying Dutchman Crysencio Summerville
eyeing the veteran up as the next in a long line of Championship prey. It took
just six minutes for Summerville to get in behind, thanks to Georginio Rutter's
incisive, round-the-corner pass, and perfectly curl the ball into the far
corner for an opener.
Farke spoke before the game of the effect the first goal
could have in forcing Rotherham to come out from behind a compact defensive
shell, but the managerless Millers didn't, not really, and by the midway point
of the half there hadn't been much more in the way of noteworthy moments. The
two sides did eventually trade chances, James scurrying free down the right
only to blaze the finish high and wide, before Sam Nombe sliced an effort just
over the bar.
That was when the visitors took over. It began with Piroe
playing Summerville in against Peltier, who he got the best of only to be
halted by goalkeeper Viktor Johansson. Summerville's defensive work outside his
own area from a Millers corner presented another chance to break, the winger
haring away and ignoring the unmarked Piroe to play in Glen Kamara instead, the
Finnish international only able to find the side netting.
When Piroe volleyed over the top from 10 yards out, that
little niggle of doubt over the arrival of a second goal, the killer goal,
started to creep in. And when Leeds lost the ball near halfway they were soon
punished for their wastefulness, and some sloppy defending to boot. There was a
heavy touch from Junior Firpo, a giveaway by Summerville, a duel Liam Cooper
didn't win, a cross Firpo did not get back in time to block, a clearance Ethan
Ampadu did not make and a tangle neither Joe Rodon nor Archie Gray could sort,
before Hakeem Odoffin spun to beat Meslier.
That equaliser came in the first half's solitary minute of
time added on and Farke would later summarise it as a symptom of his side
enjoying their own dominance a little too much. They got a little too
comfortable with their obvious superiority and forgot to prove it definitively
on the scoreboard, before the Championship humbled them.
For a moment in the early stages of the second half it
looked as if the punishment wasn't quite done with them, but Cooper managed to
block on the line after an Ampadu header was cut out, albeit with a suspicion
of handball.
Rotherham did a good job of stifling the visitors as the
half progressed and their refusal to go chasing and vacating space led to Leeds
forcing it, trying things that weren't quite on and wasting possession. So
Farke changed it, going to three at the back and putting Ian Poveda in the
middle with Patrick Bamford up top and Willy Gnonto on the right.
The switches did provoke something, some good moments, but
in none of them was Johansson overly troubled. Gnonto lashed over from a
wonderful James delivery. Bamford shot wide from distance. Pascal Struijk, on
for the injured Cooper, headed past the post. Even when Leeds did get the ball
in the net, Johansson wasn't beaten because up went the flag.
In amongst it all was the penalty shout that no one really
heard until after the game but even if Langford had spotted it and someone,
Piroe most likely, had stuck away the penalty, it would not have changed the
fact that Leeds were the biggest cause of their own discomfort on a bitterly
cold Friday night in South Yorkshire. A bit of mild peril makes for a good
story but when you're on top in a Championship battle you need to do what it
takes to stay there. With players of the calibre possessed by Leeds this
season, the biggest demons they will have to slay, if they want a happy ending,
will be of their own creation.