Leeds United 1 Brentford 0

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Wow! This is starting to feel very different, very different to the last few years anyway.  This was another typical Championship chess match that in years gone by would have ended with a calamitous Leeds United defensive error and a 1-0 home defeat and we’d have all just shrugged our shoulders and trudged home muttering, “When will this nightmare ever end?”

But this is 2016, Garry Monk is the driver of our bus, we have a squad that seems as together as it is possible to be and we have that most precious of commodities…. momentum.  Momentum breeds confidence and confidence breeds a never say die, indeed a never even say enough mentality. And you know what, when a team has that, the footballing gods look upon you with a twinkle in their eyes and they’ll give you a chance. The word around Brentford is that when Scott Hogan stabbed the ball in our net just before half-time he was just onside but those football gods gave us the benefit of the doubt because our lads are giving 100% every minute and they like that.

OK, we are still not the finished article and too many passes still go astray just at the critical moment, usually just before we get a sight of goal. And we are firing on three cylinders too with the missing cylinder being the silky skills and incisive passing of Pablo Hernandez. But everyone believes now, players and crowd alike, and when the Kop sniffed a winner was coming we implored the team to “attack, attack, attack” and they did. And it was so fitting that Captain Cool himself, Kyle Bartley should ghost in and nod the ball home much in the same way Kemar Roofe did last week. Oh these are heady times for a Leeds fan!

It was disappointing that Huddersfield won last night, that Reading grabbed a late winner at Ewood Park and that Brighton did the same at Birmingham… but the fans of those clubs will be looking at our result and saying the same; we’re in there and we are fighting and Pablo can’t be far off a return. He will be like a new signing.

We are still very thin on the ground and you have to believe we need 2 or 3 more quality players to arrive in January and pick up the baton when we suffer more suspensions and injuries as we most surely will. And we need to tighten up that passing and that finishing… but for now, let’s savour the fact that when we cut the turkey we’ll still be 5th and potentially only one game away from 3rd. Happy Christmas!