Leeds United v Millwall Emirates (FA) Cup round 4, 8th February 2025 at Elland Road please log in to view this image I’ve been sat staring at my screen for ages not knowing where to start with my blog today. Reading about those fans who are glad we are out of the FA Cup and can concentrate on the league, whilst they are entitled to their opinions, it doesn’t automatically mean that we will be promoted. I’ve seen too many times over the years how throwing the towel in has meant we capitulated rather than went from strength not strength. Winning breeds winning as far as I’m concerned. The defeat today isn’t so much about the final score but the way that we lost the game. Whilst we made so many changes, all it did was make the team look as if they hadn’t played together at all and were very unbalanced. I do feel when we had a reserve league team, that gave fringe team members chance of a game so that they were ready to slot into the first team when needed. The lack of game time tells from my point of view plus playing out of position didn’t help some of the players today. Also, fans paid good money and many travelled hundreds of miles to come to the game today and we should have put up more of a fight. Losing happens yes, but I’d still expect players to give their all on the pitch. All in all, that was a disappointing performance, but I’ll get over it as I always do. Team: Darlow, Ampadu, Guilavogui, Gnonto, Ramazani, Rothwell, Byram, Schmidt, Struijk, Joseph, Sam Chambers age 17 getting his first start. Subs: Firpo for Guilavogui (69), Tanaka for Byram (69), Solomon for Chambers (69), Piroe for Gnonto (80), Debayo for Ampadu (83). Subs not used: Meslier, Gruev, Bogle, Aaronson. Leeds lost the game 2-0. Attendance: 34,923, 1,838 Millwall fans. Referee: Gavin Ward. Booked: Guilavogui. We did have some good chances in the first half, but their keeper made good saves from Gnonto and Ramazani. Once Millwall went on the attack against the run of play they scored when their shot took a deflection and ended up in the bottom corner of the net. There again just before it, they had put two of our players on the floor on the wing, the most blatant push on Schmidt that didn’t get punished. Given a free kick would have meant no first goal for them. They nearly got a second when we started passing the ball across the back and were caught out, but luckily the ball hit the crossbar and came back out again. We did look for an equaliser and their keeper made a save from Chambers to see them go into the break in the lead. I changed seats with my daughter at half time to go back to my normal place in the Kop. Although Leeds came out at the start in search of an equaliser when Gnonto saw his shot saved by their keeper, Millwall counter attacked and went straight to the other end and got a second goal. Although at the time we thought it was game over, we got a penalty a few minutes later when Gnonto was brought down in the box. As I wondered out loud who our penalty taker would be, the lad in front of me said Struijk who I’d forgotten about. If only as he ran up to take the penalty, he’d carried on instead of stopping and starting again, as I feel the momentum would have taken the ball past their keeper instead of him saving it onto the bottom of the post and away. Rothwell saw their keeper make more saves from him, but it got to the stage when I knew we were never going to score which proved to be the case. Looking back at the chances we had, yes, their keeper had an outstanding game, was their man of the match for sure and the stats will show we probably did a lot better than it looked. The football being poor for long times in between contributed to it looking a very poor game on the pitch overall. I’d felt on top of the world after the last two games as they had given me hope for the first time in a long while. Admittedly having had the death of my husband to contend with has impacted on things greatly too. At the moment I’m feeling demoralised, but I know that once I’ve slept on things, they never seem as bad, and I can move on. I know we are heading to Watford on Tuesday and that game along with the next few, will tell me whether we can carry on our good run in the league or not. As always, I will make my judgement by what I see on the pitch so let’s hope we have a positive outcome, and my fears will be unjustified. See you there, LUFC – Marching on Together! please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
I don’t get it either Heidi, winning a cup it’s there written in history, we could get promoted and then relegated the following season. We could have self started a catalyst for a poor run. Slip up with draws against Watford, Sunderland and Sheffield and it becomes no wins in 4 I think it’s a sorry reflection of how football has changed with the vast sums involved due to Sky TV
I certainly didn’t want us out of the Cup, just wasn’t surprised there was no fluidity with the side chosen by DF. As a result, I wasn’t that surprised we lost. The fact we did, to end a long unbeaten run, and at home, was annoying.Thought we played ok, but no better than that. However, once the game finished I was more interested in how our promotion rivals got on, than allowing our defeat to ruin my weekend, as it always tends to do. Sad I know. Think we all know the clubs target was promotion(hopefully as champions), and whether supporters buy into that will be immaterial to DF. His job likely hinges on achieving it, not winning the FA Cup. That’s where we are as a club, at this moment.
You’re all missing the point we’re not within a million miles of being good enough to win the cup. This team would be stuffed by top eight pl teams at quarter final stage. We couldn’t give a deplorable Southampton team a game at Wembley last season all this talk of winning the cup is nonsense. We’ve only ever won it once and we’ve had teams miles better than this lot. All about opinions but I doubt I’ll see a cup win in my lifetime
I certainly didn’t expect us to win the Cup. Which is why, whilst the defeat was annoying, it hasn’t ruin my weekend.
If we do get promoted we had better spend zillions on player for next season then because those stuffings will be a regular occurrence. I'm just a, play your best team, win at all costs kinda guy
When we’re in the PL you moan, you state you prefer Championship football. When we’re in the cup, you moan we’ve no chance of winning it, we might as well concentrate on the league, why, to get promoted into the division you hate. Seriously mate you just moan about everything Leeds
Winning breeds confidence, I don’t expect us to win the cup but seeing how far we could get would have been nice Imagine Millwall next round getting a home draw against a Man U team lacking confidence and beatable.
Somewhere it’s mentioned not remembering the game and moving on. 2010 Jermaine Beckford - It felt like winning a play off final.
You’re one of the ones moaning about the cup. I didn’t moan about yesterday’s result. Exactly the opposite if you bother to read back. Yesterday also went a long way to proving the colossal work required In the summer to Make squad pl ready if Promoted
Totally agree. It just feels like we’ve given clubs the assurance that we can be beaten. Playing Millwall again in a few weeks won’t be as easy as some think I fear.
The team that started Wednesday or the team that started yesterday, which will have the best chance though.
So we want to be in the premier league but can’t even compete against them to see how we do against a team from there? It’s a case we should be challenging for it regardless whether we win it in the end or not. We were looking strong as a team for the first time including our depth as a squad which gave me hope. Already writing ourselves off against any team is a defeatist attitude and half of why we will never succeed if that is the case. All we seem to have done is succeed in letting teams know we can be beaten especially Millwall.
Thing is I don’t want to spend millions on players who don’t give a toss for the club as we’d be down so quickly. Instead of being scared against teams in the FA Cup you can see how far you progress against them but we’ll never know if we don’t try. If we are too scared to compete against them now what chance do we have of not being beaten every week if we do get up? It’s a defeatist attitude which will come back to bite us at some point.
I'm pretty sure we will, Farke made a decision yesterday imo, cup progression or a better chance in the league, we had Rodon and James out injured, a couple more with niggles that needed resting for Tuesdays game at Watford, he made the right call imo, it also showed us a couple are not good enough to start. It would have been nice to go a round further with the chance of a big name in the next round but promotion has to be paramount, if for nothing else, the financial situation we are in.
With yesterday’s defeat goes the winning momentum, and alongside it goes the winning mentality. You can’t pick and choose which games you don’t mind losing. You could tell yesterday that the players weren’t bothered. Not really their fault because it had been instilled in them not to be too bothered. In fact subconsciously they were under the impression it was preferable to lose. If that had been a league game yesterday, and Leeds had fielded the same team, Millwall may well have still won, but Leeds would at least have gone down fighting instead of throwing in the towel and surrendering. Bad move by Farke. Football is played just as much in the head as on the pitch. I just hope his defeatist attitude to the cup doesn’t spread to the players in the league.
Agree, I wanted us to win . However I could accept it far more readily because it wasn’t a league fixture, and we effectively had a B side representing us, even though I rate most of those, who turned out for us.
