Leeds United 2 Queens Park Rangers 0: Whites are scruffy and sloppy but get the job done — Yorkshire Post 9/11/24

By Stuart Rayner

There was a scruffiness about how Leeds United scored and a sloppiness about how they did not, but Leeds United managed to scramble a 2-0 win over the worst team in the Championship on Saturday.

There are no points for artistic impression football and just as well.

Leeds' football has got scratchy in the last week before the final international break of the year but unlike at Millwall on Wednesday, they got the job done.

By whatever statistic you want to measure it by, Leeds bossed the game but had only Jayden Bogle's ugly goal and Joel Piroe's finessed one 76 uncomfortable minutes later to show for it. Queens Park Rangers were working off starvation rations when it came to chances but those they had were pretty tasty.

Leeds will be thanking their lucky stars they were not good enough to take them. It must be contagious.

The bottom-of-the-table side lined up in something approaching a 5-2-2-1 formation and although they were more willing to try to break out when they had the ball than Plymouth Argyle had been seven days earlier (not saying much), they struggled to do so.

And yet it was squeaky bum time for Elland Road right through to the fifth of what was due to be a minimum of six added minutes.

Brenden Aaronson hit the crossbar in the 17th minute when he came inside on his right foot.

The deadlock was broken by the ugliest of goals two minutes later, but it was no signal for a capitulation by the men in black.

Joe Rothwell surged down the left of the visiting centre-backs and dinked a cross left-winger Manor Solomon was unable to volley in at the far post. Willy Gnonto touched the ball goalwards and when Mateo Joseph's effort was blocked, the ball fell to right-back Bogle, to the left of the Rs goal, to scramble in.

If it was all a bit Sunday league, no Leeds fan was complaining.

But try as they might, they could not add a second until Piroe's almost rudely late intervention.

Rothwell fed Aaronson in space on the left but the American's shot was blacked by Sam Field, then gobbled by a grateful Paul Nardi.

In inspired form, Bogle surged past two men and his ball in deflected to Ao Tanaka, whose shot was was blocked when it looked as though it might just curl inside the post.

Joseph had a strike on the turn blocked at point blank, Sam Byram shot into the side netting, Gnonto's ricocheted off a defender's shin and Solomon had a goal chalked off for offside.

The onrushing Byram had to crane his neck to a lovely Tanaka ball at the end of the first half but was not quite able to put it inside the far post.

QPR had only one effort in the first half, but Jimmy Dunne's 32nd-minute header fractionally wide from a free-kick was a warning.

The half-time interval did nothing to break the pattern.

Bogle fired a dangerous low ball after being released by Gnonto but it was not just Koki Saito he was too quick for.

Gnonto broke down the middle just after the hour but with Nardi off his line, his pass for Solomon was firm enough to allow the goalkeeper to get there first.

Unconvincing defending in the 66th minute allowed Steve Cook to put the ball in but Sam Field but it onto the roof of the net when he ought to have scored.

Daniel James' appearance to warm up on the hour drew cheers from the crowd but it would be the 72nd minute before he and Piroe were introduced, the first home changes of the afternoon.

Bogle came close minutes later, pouncing to steal the ball off Aaronson as he dribbled goalwards and forcing a save. As the ball ping-ponged around, neither he nor Piroe could put it in.

You could feel – and hear – the nerves when Tanaka sloppily gave the ball away in Leeds' final third and Zan Celar took pity by curling his shot over.

Gnonto, Aaronson, Piroe and Josuha Guilavogui all had their chances after that but it took right until the end to settle the game decisively.

When substitute Isaac Schmidt played the ball in, Piroe his way into a shooting position before dinking the ball over Nardi.

It was a blessed relief for Leeds after an unimpressive afternoon.

But look in the paper on Sunday.