Everton               0

Leeds United      1 (Raphinha 79)

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First things first, what a magnificent result! To win at Goodison has never been easy for us and we hadn’t got a league win here in over thirty years! And,  in our first season back and with Everton having already shown this season what they are capable of when on song, then this is a great result.

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I guess the frustration I have, and probably share with most Leeds fans, is one that has dogged this team of ours throughout Bielsa’s reign. For all our domination of the game, a 1 – 0 result just does not do us justice and quite how this game remained in the balance until the final whistle I will never know! Bielsa warned us in those early games that the brilliance of our finishing would not last, could not last all season, and he noted how important it would be to create more chances than we did then. Well, we’ve certainly upped the chance creation numbers and the attempts at goal but sadly the conversion rate has fallen even further! We ought to have been three or four goals to the good before the hour mark but some weak finishing let us down. As I say. It’s nothing new, we’ve had this issue for years! And for years it has frustrated me that perhaps it's preventing us getting the true appreciation from the media and the football world as to just how good we really are.

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The problem, when we can’t get goals on the board, is that we are always susceptible to the sucker punch and I’m not sure if it was just me or not but I didn’t relax about that until the ref blew for time today! We had a couple of defensive wobbles too, just to fray the nerves further but, on the few occasions Everton got through, Illan Meslier was again superb and he actually got my vote for Man of the Match.

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It would have been a travesty had we succumbed but it’s always a possibility while we are so profligate with our chances. I do wonder if the quality of our chances would improve if Pablo was in there or if we had Rodrigo on the pitch for longer, it just seems to me that, well as we play, dominant as we are, without one of our Spanish magicians on the pitch everything is just a little less “measured!”.

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For now though let’s glory in another magnificent performance and, whether the world understands or not yet I’m not sure, but at least we Leeds fans know how good we are! I would end with something like.. “Sooner or later we’ll batter someone” but we said that so often in the Championship and it rarely happened so let’s be content with a few One-Nils!