Leeds United

Leeds United hold out Whites flag in abject loss to Sheffield Wednesday

Sheffield Wednesday deserved their 3-0 win today at Hillsborough, in fact they deserved more and were unlucky not to get it.

No-one should attempt to take anything away from Sheffield Wednesday for this performance, observers shouldn’t focus on ‘how weak’ Leeds United’s performance was when talking about the Owls victory.

Aside from a lively opening from Leeds United, an opening where they had Wednesday of the rack, the Sheffield side weren’t really in that desperate a sense of struggle that they had to worry.

You can point to Leeds United weaknesses, but not when looking at how Sheffield Wednesday played their game. Both sides were coming off of demoralising defeats, Leeds losing 3-1 to Cardiff and Wednesday 4-2 to rivals Sheffield United, but it was the Sheffield side who turned a corner with their performance this afternoon.

The only corner Leeds United turned was one in an ever-tighter circle that, after an impressive opening 15 minutes saw them in danger of disappearing up their own backsides. Defensively they ranged from poor to abject and there were no stops in-between. All across the back four Leeds United were poor, from Gaetano Berardi to Luke Ayling, via Pontus Jansson and Matthew Pennington – simply poor.

The malaise didn’t end there, the rot spread deeper than that. In midfield it was a quagmire performance at best with Kalvin Phillips and the recalled Eunan O’Kane simply looked like bemused travellers slowly sinking in quicksand.

Out on the flanks it was the same, with the usually flair-producing Gianni Alioski and fleet-footed Kemar Roofe looking like children running the wrong way up an escalator.

In fact, the only two to emerge from this debacle with any modicum of respect and a tipped hat of respect were Pierre-Michel Lasogga and Samu Saiz. Lasaogga toiled a lonely path up front like a soldier fighting a war on his own with his supply lines cut off. Saiz looked dangerous when he had the ball, his strength belaying his seeming lack of stature.

Wait! I can almost hear the screaming of the hordes of Leeds United fans saying what about Wiedwald, you know Mr Flappy Keeper. We’ve just got rid of ‘Spaghetti Arms’ Silvestri and look what we’ve got instead, ‘Bratwurst Hands’ Wiedwald!

No, he wasn’t blameless, by no short straw was he blameless. I’d be with the growing mob on social media, both Twitter and Facebook, demanding his instant expulsion from the side and a demand that he be sent packing before the Brexit deal gives him certain rights.

If he’d been behind a rock-solid defence and made the ‘errors’ he made today, then I’d be lighting the torches of the mob myself. But he wasn’t, there was less a brick wall and more a paper rag in front of him today. Whilst that doesn’t excuse him fully, it at least pardons him a little.

Not in the eyes of so-called ‘fans’ on Facebook and Twitter it doesn’t, for they are baying for his blood. Not all mind you, but an unhealthy number are. You see, that’s the typical Leeds United knee-jerk mentality that some of our fans have – a bad performance demands that a scapegoat must be sought out.

In the past it has done for the likes of Marco Silvestri, Jason Pearce and Tom Lees; there is already a Kalvin Phillips out mob brewing in certain places. It is one way that fans cope with disappointment, just one way.

There is also already one Leeds United Facebook group admin who has lowered the Thomas Christiansen flag and renamed the group a variation along the theme of ‘Thomas Christiansen Out’.

It’s sad really, sad that these fans make a mountain the size of Everest out of more of a wormhill than one made by a mole. Three successive away defeats, yes three defeats on the bounce on their travels. Millwall bossed them, Cardiff bossed them and today Sheffield Wednesday did a job on them too.

But the United still remain in the top six on the merit of their sparkling early season form, even with three defeats. Today there were glaring problems in the side, but fans need to remember that it is the same unit of players who got them those results and drove the side to the head of the table.

What is galling for all fans is that Leeds United simply surrendered today, threw in the towel and waved the Whites flag of defeat. In the same manner that Felix Wiedwald can be excused full wrath due to the water-soaked toilet-roll defence in front of him, so this surrender excuses some of the reactions of Leeds United fans.

Just some though, not all.

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