Leeds Utd 0​

Arsenal     4(Zubimendi 27, Darlow og 38, Gyokeres 69, G Jesus86)

 

31st January 2026. English Premier League.

36,858.

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Let’s be honest, many of us thought Leeds would succumb to Arsenal, especially if they played to their best ability. If they did, it wouldn’t matter how well we played; put simply, man for man, they are better than we are, and they should win. Hence, in my regular piece for the Yorkshire Evening Post, I predicted a 1 – 3 result in favour of the visiting Gunners, assuming both sides would put in their best performances. Leeds had to be pretty much perfect if they were to push the visitors at all, and, sadly, we were a long way from perfect.

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Most of this season, I have frequently bemoaned the fact that opposition sides tend not to score ‘good’ goals against Leeds; more often than not, it seems you can point to an error or two in almost every goal we concede. Contrast that with the majority of goals we score, and, in general, I think most people would agree, we work hard for our goals and get little or no help from the opposition. Well, for me, today was another classic example.

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One could argue (and I am going to!) that all four goals were avoidable if we had been sharper, quicker, and more organised at critical moments in the game. Maybe I’m too expectant at this stage of our latest Premier League venture, maybe I just have to accept that our players are not good enough to thwart the sort of goal attempts we face at this level, but it does seem odd that we concede goals that you can usually find someone in our ranks to blame and yet the goals we score tend to be purely of our own making!

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Leeds started this game looking as sharp as we have done since that halftime epiphany at the Etihad, and with almost a third of the game gone, we’d been solid, despite Arsenal displaying their obvious quality on occasions, particularly down their right with Noni Madueke, a late change for the Gunners after Saka suffered an injury in the warn up – maybe that was just our bad luck. We even had a shot at the Arsenal goal when Ethan Ampadu lined one up and struck it only a yard or so over the left angle. Sadly, that was as good as it got for Leeds and in the 27th minute, we went a goal behind.

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An Arsenal right-wing corner was scrambled away, and the Leeds defence, well, the whole team really, tried to push out only to have to retreat immediately as Arsenal collected the ball and fed it to Madueke on the right. He went one way, then the other, to get a yard of space from Gabby Gudmundsson to cross, and then we watched as Joe Rodon got himself trapped behind two Arsenal players in the box. Joe was unable to challenge Zubimendi, and his glanced header flew past Darlow. Was it avoidable? Or were the Arsenal players just too good to work the opening? It was yet another goal coming from the left side of our defence too – we’ve been aware of that issue all season.

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There can be absolutely no doubt, though, that the second Arsenal goal, in the 38th minute, was avoidable. Okay, the Gunners are supreme at the art of the corner kick, but let’s be honest, it was a shambles! Clever corner that it was from that damn Madueke, curled into the near post, the sight of Karl Darlow, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and James Justin all challenging for the same ball, with not a single Arsenal man close enough to worry about, would have been laughable if it was not so calamitous to our cause. Isn’t the keeper supposed to plough through his own men to smash the ball away?

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Two goals down at halftime felt very much like it did at the Emirates back in August, when I seem to remember Arsenal didn’t have to exactly bust a gut to score against us that day either.

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Daniel Farke seems less reticent these days to try to change things early on when it’s not working, and today he brought on Sean Lonstaff and Noah Okafor for James Justin and Ilia Gruev, and, you could argue, it worked to a degree – we didn’t concede for another 24 minutes, similar to how the first half went. It did strengthen my view, though, that it was maybe not the right choice at the start to have Justin in there at all instead of the towering Seb Bornauw, knowing that we’d probably face a barrage of corner kicks throughout the game! I’ve not yet heard the logic for starting Justin as a quasi-third centre back.

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The third Arsenal goal also had elements to it that looked avoidable to me, although, yes, again, credit to the skill and wit of the Gunners. Pascal Struijk steamed across the pitch to cut off Martinelli's run, but the Gunner was too clever. Even though Pascal recovered to try to stop the cross coming in, it still did, and then Gyokeres got the better of Jayden Bogle (wrong side of his man?), much as Barry did to Bornauw at Everton. Call me cynical, but was this goal avoidable, too? Karl Darlow did pull off a brilliant reaction save to save a Jesus header next, but then, just as we were all thinking “Well, 3-0 ain’t that bad, and we’ve given them a helping hand even to get those”, we got done again. Gabriel Jesus managed to hold off Pascal Struijk, maybe a little too easily, and he fired in a fourth.

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On the way home in the car, it felt like the worst weekend ever as news came through from Stamford Bridge. I’d been absolutely certain that Chelsea would beat West Ham, but they were two goals down! With Leeds having to face Chelsea, Aston Villa and Manchester City once we’ve dealt with Forest next week, it had us all frantically looking at the upcoming Hammers’ fixtures! (Burnley away, Man United and Liverpool at home since you ask!). But, thankfully, we now love Chelsea a bit more than we usually do, as they did what they were supposed to in a rampant second half.

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So, it’s pretty much as you were, no damage done today, and with Forest playing Palace tomorrow, they can’t both win, so some comfort there for us. I’ve said it most weeks, though. Leeds have to find a way to make it more difficult for the opposition to score against us, make them work for it. Too often, we are too easy to break down, and if we don’t sort it out, we could yet find ourselves back in that bottom three. Good as we've played since that Citeh game, we've still been conceding soft goals, though our results have tended to mask that fact. Remember, Forest got a nil-nil draw against Arsenal a couple of weeks ago, Arsenal outplayed them but Forest gave them nothing. Maybe we missed the chance of an awesome point today. 

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