Leeds Utd    2 (Cooper 3 og, Tanaka 85) ​

Millwall         0                                          

 

12th March 2025. EFL Championship

34,401.

 

The match stats suggest that this was a totally dominant victory against the usually troublesome Lions – overwhelming possession, 18 shots to just four for Millwall, and 38 touches in their box compared to only 7 for them in ours. But we all know that for the 82 minutes between taking the 3rd minute lead and Ao Tanaka doubling it in the 85th minute, at any moment Millwall could have lucked their way to an equaliser and the more Leeds continued to miss the target the more likely that nightmare scenario became.

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Thankfully the nightmare didn’t materialise and, to be honest, Millwall rarely looked like scoring so, in hindsight, we were worrying unnecessarily. The giant Jake Cooper was always a potential danger but he put wide the one clear header he was allowed while Illan Meslier only really had one deflected cross to deal with that he pushed over the bar and that was the sum of his night’s work.

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You could argue Leeds had the luck on their side too when Cooper’s knee deflected a low Manor Solomon cross, delivered almost from the byline,  wrong-footing the Lions’ keeper who then seemed to push it across the goal line. But, at other times tonight, the luck most definitely didn’t go with us. Joel Piroe scored a goal, a fine team goal ending a flowing Leeds attack, that would have given Leeds a 2 – 0 half-time lead had it not been struck off for an incorrect offside flag against Brenden Aaronson. Referee Dean Whitestone didn’t help us much either as foul after foul was made against us with no sign of a yellow card all night – in fact the Leeds faithful suggested he’d come without his cards!

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The biggest problem for Leeds tonight was one that has plagued us on and off all season; hitting the target. Of a seemingly plentiful 18 shots at goal, just two hit the target (Millwall had none) while eight missed the target altogether and another eight were blocked before reaching the target. That suggests that, dominant as our possession was, we didn’t actually create many decent openings.

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Ao Tanaka had a first half shot go narrowly wide, Brenden Aaronson had Lukas Jensen scrambling at the foot of a post to turn his shot away for a corner in the first half and he hit a dipping volley just over at the start of the second half. Manor Solomon hit the side netting and struck the crossbar in the second half before Ao Tanaka showed the way for the second goal; it will go down as yet another assist for Junior Firpo.

It came after a dozen or so uninterrupted Leeds passes, starting on the right and then with a little burst of pace from Joe Rothwell over to the left. Solomon pushed the ball through for Firpo and then ran for the return but Junior’s pass was heavy and bypassed Manor but instead found Ao Tanaka running in on the edge of the box. Ao hit it first time with his right boot and it curled perfectly inside the left post. Finally we could all breathe easy and the celebrations could begin.

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If felt very much like any one of that string of 2 – 0 victories we recorded early in the season; Leeds overwhelmingly the better team, but always looking likely to concede from a sucker punch until the game was put to bed with a second goal. But it was a much more fluent performance than we saw at Portsmouth last weekend and, fingers crossed, we can go on now and put another run of wins on the board.  Nine games to go,  a four point cushion to Burnley in third and that all important Burnley v Blades game still to come on Easter Monday.  A win at QPR on Saturday, before our rivals play, would pile the pressure on them both and they both have tricky looking fixtures themselves, Burnley at unpredictable Swansea and Sheffield United at neighbours Sheffield Wednesday.  Come on Leeds, it feels like a potential watershed weekend coming up.