Match Day Thread Leeds United v PNE Elland Road 28/8/2018

Fizzy Thai drink cup round 2 takes us to that lovely outpost of football, Leeds with those ever so welcoming fans. Given our stop start to the season and the lack of putting the ball in the net on opposition soil, this could be a very difficult night at the Championship leaders. They are flying at the moment and under new manager/coach Bielsa.
His lack of English has not proved a hindrance as they have only dropped two points in the first five games. They have invested well with the purchase of Douglas from Wolves for three million being an absolute bargain.
Also bought Patrick Bamford for 7 million and he's not a regular. Roofe has had a great start to the season and they seem to be a strong bet for actually going up this season although suspect somewhere along the line they may have a wobble and collapse in a heap like they usually do.
They made a few changes in the last round against Bolton and suspect they will do the same against us.
Can only think of one previous meeting in the League Cup that was in 1967-68 season drew the first game 1-1 with Leeds winning the replay 3-0.
Fringe players like Storey, and Earl will play, free hit of a game for us, nothing to lose which I think we probably will.
Fair play to Leeds only costing me a fiver to get in a bargain if ever there was.

 

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Taking charge of his first PNE game of the season on Tuesday night is experienced match official Tony Harrington.

He’s a man who has been a familiar face over recent seasons. Last year he visited Deepdale twice, the Lilywhites’ opening day 1-0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday in Alex Neil’s first competitive game in charge of the club, and our Bank Holiday Monday clash with Derby County.

The previous season he also took charge of two North End games, the 1-1 draw away at Nottingham Forest and the thrilling 4-2 win over Brentford at Deepdale.

Tony, who is now in his eighth year on the EFL list has also been to PR1 on a number of previous occasions in the past, including the 2014/15 penalty win against Oldham Athletic in the JPT and the club’s last two home league games against Notts County, including a 2-0 win over the Magpies at Deepdale in February 2014.
This will be the Cleveland referee’s third game of the season, having refereed West Bromwich Albion’s 7-1 home win over Queens Park Rangers and on Saturday he took charge of Blackburn’s 1-0 win over Brentford, so far issuing four cautions and no red cards.

He will be joined by assistants Mark Dwyer and Nick Hopton, whilst Trevor Kettle will be the fourth official.

 

A fiver? Unlike Leeds.

 

League cup

 

Leeds United 0 Preston North End 2 Johnson, Barker

Leeds United line-up: Blackman, Bamford, Roberts (Alioski, 61), Dallas ©, Jansson, Pearce, Harrison, Phillips, Baker, Shaughnessy (Saiz, 46), Shackleton (Klich, 46). Subs not used: Huffer, Ayling, Douglas, Roofe.

PNE line-up: Maxwell, Fisher, Earl, Ledson, Storey, Davies ©, Barkhuizen, Johnson (Pearson, 72), Moult (Nmecha, 75), Harrop, Barker (Browne, 73). Subs not used: Rudd, Hughes, Burke, Huntington, Nmecha.

Attendance: 18,652 (981 PNE fans)

Referee: Mr T Harrington

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A top notch performance by the lads last night, down to 10 for the best part of an hour and still win, also found some unique ways to waste time a truly epic night.
Both teams made a shed load of changes United 9 us 7, however in the early stages we looked more settled, Leeds started poorly especially at the back, they had already messed up one clearance before Moult was brought down in the area following another cock up, looks like an easy fall but not complaining, Johnson sent the keeper the wrong way. Could have been two up within a minute as Barkhuizen flashed an effort just wide.

DJ penalty

Leeds gradually got into the game and began to look a threat especially down the wings and Maxwell was forced to make a good save by an effort from Shacklton. We weathered the storm and started to look more dangerous until Ledson flew into a tackle and after seeing pictures rightly got the red card.
Backs against the wall stuff for the rest of the half, Leeds had plenty of space to work with but the final ball was often poor although Bamford did force Maxwell into a couple of good saves.
However on the stroke of half time North End doubled the lead, with a stunning one man raid, Barker picked up the ball 25yards inside his own half and then started running, he didn't stop until he unleashed a rocket of a shot past Blackman for a truly tremendous goal.
Leeds brought on the big guns Saiz and Klich for the second half, they had plenty of possession but never really troubled Maxwell, efforts flying hide and wide. We were by now being extremely professional time wasting, it was truly magnificent, although United had most of the ball we did Harrop did force Blackman into a save, but the action was mainly at the other end, corner after corner and still Leeds couldn't score. We made substitutions this enraged the home side even more with the slow walks of all walks when going off especially DJ whose amble off caused a brawl. No further alarms and we thoroughly deserved the victory. Keeper Chris Maxwell MOM for 101 new ways to waste time magnificent.

Alex Neil said his Preston North End players deserved their plaudits for their performance in the 2-0 away win at Leeds United in the Carabao Cup second round.

Daniel Johnson converted an early penalty and Brandon Barker scored a stunning solo effort to double the lead before the break, but the Lilywhites had to play for over an hour with ten men following Ryan Ledson’s dismissal.

Despite being down to ten men, PNE restricted their West Yorkshire counterparts to few clear openings and the gaffer said his players were worthy of the praise that would come their way for their reaction to some difficult results.


“That win has been coming for us,” I think against Stoke we should’ve won and in the last two matches we’ve been on top when we conceded the first goal and that first goal is crucial.

“We nicked the ball three or four times in the first five minutes and we could’ve potentially been two or three up. We get the penalty and score; they’re the chances we haven’t been putting away of late, we’ve nicked the ball in great areas but it’s that next little bit that makes the difference

“We’re really pleased and I think you could see the frustration from myself and players tonight on the pitch in terms of wanting to put it right because we don’t like losing football games. I think people thought we were just going to turn up here with it being a Cup game and go through the motions.

“I spoke about the strength in my squad and I think you could see that tonight. We had some great performances right across the pitch, the only problem now is they’ve got a game on Saturday and ran themselves into the ground a little.

“We’ll look at that over the next couple of days but I’m extremely proud of the players and I thought the fans were fantastic and we gave them a really great spectacle, certainly for 30 minutes where I thought we were the better side. And then when we needed to dig in, we did that. We played ten against a team that’s been blowing everybody away and we’re really pleased.”
The PNE boss commented on a number of impressive individual displays from his team, including Ben Davies who skippered the side for the first time and Barker, who scored the brilliant second, but ultimately said every player taking to the field on the night was impressive.

“Ben got given the captaincy because for me we need to get him out of his shell more. He’s a fantastic talent and I think he’s going to go on to become a top, top centre back and I want him to be one of the leaders within the group. He’s only 22 and that might be asking a lot but I think he’s capable and he showed that tonight. I’ve got as much confidence in him as I have the other lads and they repaid that tonight with a really good performance.

“He [Barker] played at Morecambe and I had to take him off and he’s then come on as a sub in other games, so we wanted to try and build him up.

“What he did tonight, like against Morecambe, is show how dangerous he can be around the edge of the box. He’s got great pace for the counter attack and great quality with it so we’re really pleased with him as I am with the rest of the lads. All the plaudits they will get are thoroughly deserved.

“The one thing we have to remember is that a lot of these are young lads, so they’re going to dip but we need to have the patience with them to keep trying to get them to become better and more experienced and make better decisions.
"If you look at the team tonight, it was really young and to add to that, we bring Lukas on who’s 19. They did fantastically well and we need to make sure we take that type of performance into the league because that’s our bread and butter.”