Leeds United 1 Tottenham Hotspur 2: Whites not clinical enough to preserve unbeaten home record — Yorkshire Post 4/10/25

By Stuart Rayner

Leeds United lost a league match at Elland Road for the first time in 385 days because they were not clinical enough to stop it.

Tottenham Hotspur were.

The Whites have been good up to a point this season, but fine margins are often the deciding factor in the Premier League, especially when you come up against Champions League squads.

Spurs scored two goals out of fewer chances and less of the ball than Leeds scored one with. Guglielmo Vicario made a couple of good saves – most especially from Joel Piuroe in stoppage-time – but a team with more cutting edge would have found a way.

A more ruthless one might not have allowed the Spurs goals either, both deflected in by Pascal Struijk as he tried to close the shots down.

It was only referee Thomas Bramall who looked out of place in Premier League surroundings, but whilst the home fans pinned the blame on him at full-time, his weak hand did not play a deciding role. It was Leeds’ milkiness which did that.

After failing to take what they deserved from Fulham and Bournemouth too, they have to make sure they do not fall into a pattern, but looking at their start in the round as yet another international break kicks in, theirs has been a good start to the season. No more, no less.

Spurs had not won the game after a European tie for two years, so faced with a 12.30pm kick-off having been in the Arctic Circle in midweek, Leeds needed to hit them with intense football from the start. They did.

Their football was a mixture of aggression, creativity and adventure, with Sean Longstaff and Ethan Ampadu tigerish in midfield and Noah Okafor happily taking his man on down the left.

Anton Stach caught a fifth minute volley so sweetly from a Longstaff corner, but directed it terribly, way wide of Vicario's goal. Two minutes later it was Joe Rodon on the end of a Longstaff dead ball, heading against the far post from a tight angle.

Buoyed rather than disheartened by last week's 2-2 draw with Bournemouth, Leeds were on it. There were groans from the crowd when Gabriel Gudmundsson let a ball over his head, but cheers when he swivelled and tackled Mohammed Kudus.

It took 10 minutes for Spurs to have an attack, and Paulinha's blazed shot from an Ethan Ampadu cross made it come to nothing.

But their next attack was more dangerous, Leeds players drawn to Xavier Simons, freeing the left win for Destiny Udogie to gallop down. Whether what he delivered was meant to be a shot or a cross, Karl Darlow chested it away.

It was a warning about the danger the away side posed on the coutner-attack.

They made the breakthrough in the 24th minute, untidiness on the halfway line by Longstaff allowing them to break. Mathys Tel got the ball a yard ahead of Struijk and although the centre-back caught him up, he could only deflect the ball past Darlow.

When Spurs responded to a bad miss by Dominic Calvert-Lewin, getting under a shot, you worried for Leeds, but Kudus gave Udogie's squared pass the same treatment.

From there Leeds got back on top, and onto the scoresheet.

Jayden Bogle put a god cross in which Calvert-Lewin laid back for Brenden Aaronson. The American's shot was saved by Okafor was able to get on the end of it to tap in.

Longtsaff had two attempts at adding to it, but the first hit Rodrigo Bentancur and the second was the latest effort to comfortably clear the crossbar.

But the Spurs threat was always there, with Darlow forced into a good reaction save to keep out Tel in first-half stoppage time. It was hard to see if it was his glove or the ball which rattled the crossbar.

Leeds had their chances to go in front at the start of the second half, missed them and paid the price.

They counter-attacked when Simons' daft attempt at a rabona-style pass turned the ball over and when Okafor played the ball into Calvert-Lewin's feet, he produced a lovely turn but a shot Vicario could stick a boot out to.

When the ball came back in from Stach, neither Calvert-Lewin nor Okafor could quite stretch to it.

In the 57th minute, they were punished for that and an awkward Gudmundsson touch. Kudus beat him easily and came inside. Once again Struijk's closing down just resulted in a deflection past his goalkeeper.

Wilson Odobert nearly allowed Spurs to follow it up, bursting through a tackle but just missing Kudus with his pull-back.

Then it was back to Leeds attacking, Rodon unable to keep his header down with Struijk and Udogie to jump over, Longstaff turning and shooting wide as manager Daniel Farke puffed his cheeks out in frustration.

Bogle's 79th-minute shot was a bit desperate, and immediately followed by a switch to 3-4-1-2 as Lukas Nmech and Piroe were brought on to play around Calvert-Lewin.

Piroe was involved in the stoppage-time drama as Leeds desperately tried to salvage a point.

Longstaff's volley was wild, but Piroe's shot forced an excellent plunging save, and a corner. From it, Struijk's header was deflected over for another which came to nothing.

Maybe Leeds just ran out of time, but it felt like they were not quite at the level to take what should have been theirs. The Premier League can be unforgiving at times, but Leeds certainly do not look out of place in it.