Spotted: Willy Gnonto should be fuming, officials robbed Leeds United star — Leeds All Over 6/2/25
Kris Smith
Leeds United came out of their trip to Coventry City with
richly deserved 2-0 win that could have been another battering with better
finishing and officiating.
After hammering Cardiff at the weekend, Leeds knew they
faced much sterner opposition in Frank Lampard’s in-form Coventry City.
Four league wins on the bounce prior to this meeting
underlined the threat they posed, but the game was never in doubt for Leeds
after taking a fairly early lead.
A 2-0 win away at Coventry is not a result to be played
down, restoring Leeds’ five-point gap to third, but it should have been another
battering.
Joel Piroe’s ruthless finish made it 1-0, before Jayden
Bogle channelled Lionel Messi to drive through and double Leeds’ lead, helped
by Sky Blues keeper Oliver Dovin spilling the ball back to him.
After that in the second half, Leeds saw a stonewall penalty
on Brenden Aaronson waved away when barged over from behind, and multiple
golden chances go begging as Leeds exploited the home side’s high line.
With more clinical finishing in the second half, Leeds could
easily have come away with back-to-back 7-0 victories, albeit helped to a clean
sheet by two marvellous stops from Illan Meslier too.
Late in the game, Leeds thought they had finally added a
third when Junior Firpo latched onto a cut-back to turn into the goal, akin to
his goal at Sunderland.
Willy Gnonto diverted the ball in as it was going over the
goal line, and Leeds celebrated for a decent amount of time before referee Dean
Whitestone and his linesman buckled under Coventry pressure and gave offside
against Gnonto.
Images have now revealed on X that Gnonto was clearly onside
and the goal should have stood:
Woeful finishing and officiating spared Coventry a beating
If Leeds took chances as well as they did in the first half,
then that game would have been a total massacre.
Not only that, but if the officials had done their job
properly, we would have had another two goals at least on the board.
The foul on Aaronson was as blatant a penalty as you’re ever
likely to see, and Gnonto is over a yard onside and is clearly visible to the
linesman on that side.
The tone was set early on when Joe Rodon had his shirt
neatly ripped off his back, then kneed in the face but no penalty was given –
not good enough.