Leeds United 1 (Nmecha 8)​

Aston Villa     2  (Rogers 48, 75))

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23rd November 2025. Premier League.

36,819.

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Oh come on, Leeds, we are self-destructing here, letting ourselves down. A fine first half where all of the pacey and aggressive press was back and during which we got our noses ahead, and were clearly the better side, then counted for nothing by the end as we started the second half slowly, conceded two soft goals and then, only then did we get going again as the black cloud of another defeat loomed over Elland Road.

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This Villa side is a top team, a team in form lately after a slow start to the season. Yet we made them look very ordinary for 45 minutes, and had we managed to build on that half and had we continued to take the game to the visitors, we’d now be thinking that much of the worry we were all suffering was perhaps overdone. Instead, it was the Villa that came out after the break to grab the momentum back, helped by scoring a soft goal just three minutes into the second half. Once again, a player got around us on the left side of our defence, and then we were all too slow to get to the ball first, as Rogers was the one who was more alert than we were to flick the ball home. I’ve said it many times already this season: we have all focused too much on the fact that we are scoring too few goals, yet for me, the more pressing issue is that we are giving away too many soft goals at the other end. One goal should have been enough today to get the three points that would have eased everyone’s worries. I’m no football coach, so I have no idea if it’s the quality of the players we have back there or if we are not coaching them well enough, but it's plain to see we have a problem in that area of the pitch, and we have had it all season. On balance, I think bringing back Pascal Struijk in place of Jaka Bijol did help, particularly given Pascal’s more forward-thinking style and his threat at set pieces. But I now wonder whether we ought to at least try playing all three of Rodon, Struijk and Bijol, or even put Ampadu back in there with any two of the others to give our full-backs more cover, as they continue to look some of our best attacking options. While we are thinking about that, maybe a bit more focus on defending free-kicks might be useful too!

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Fans seem divided as to whether that Villa free kick was a sublime strike or another failed defensive set-up. For me, it was the latter. Something was wrong; the ball was side-footed, and it hit the net not far off-centre. That should not happen. We spent ages setting up a wall at a similar free-kick in the first half, and that didn’t look right to me either, but we got away with that one.

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As we’ve seen before, the introduction of a raft of attacking players then did wrest back the momentum, but by then it was too late, especially at the rate at which we convert chances and recognising that the Villa were then doing what we should have done: protect their lead at all costs and see out the game. In summary, therefore, this one needs to be filed alongside the two points dropped against Bournemouth and the one thrown away at Fulham, maybe the one we carelessly lost against Spurs, too.

  

We had the ball in the net, of course, but, not for the first time this season, I’m thinking that Dominic Calvert-Lewin has far more similarities to Patrick Bamford than just the fact that he misses too many chances; he also looks like a player who seldom gets the rub of the green, too! Bamford always seemed to me a player who, if he didn’t suffer bad luck, would get no luck at all, and DCL gives off the same vibe for me. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good!

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So, the positives of seeing us go toe to toe with one of the best sides in the division and match them for large parts of the game, was undone by a couple of poor defensive moments and that will be the worry in everyone’s minds as we travel to face Man City next week; they will be merciless in punishing any weakness we show. They have hit 16 past us in our last four encounters, and I fear that if we can’t improve how we defend before next weekend, they’ll put at least another four past us. As for the Farke in or Farke out debate, I now don’t care either way. I still doubt any conductor can get a better, more consistent tune out of this group of players, but the time is approaching fast when we will have to throw the dice and gamble that someone might. It’s that old truism that, if we continue to do the same thing, we are deluding ourselves if we think we’ll get a different outcome.

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Oh, and one last thing... that ref and his liners were poor today! Not the reason we lost the game but really poor in so many ways.