On tweet summed it up. Pathetic.
There is nothing much pretty about these early giant killing matches. Brutal tactics versus free flowing football. Bielsa set up Leeds with a mix of first team and super subs. What was evident was that with Poveda, Davis and Shackleton we had a significantly shorter team than Crawley. A rare appearance on BBC with Jonathan Pearce quietly commentating and Martin Keown chipping in with “by the way…”
Early on the Crawley tactic to exploit Leeds’ weakness of long balls to a couple of strikers when counter attacking was in full flow. Bielsa playing three at the back managed the long balls well.
It took Leeds 15 minutes to have a big chance on target. Leeds meanwhile flooded the midfield to thread balls through one touch football to Rodigo.
By the half hour mark the only reason Leeds had not scored was the inability for the quick passing to reach the final man in the box. The highlight in the first half was a Crawley player fouling Alioski, never a wise move. Crawley edged the first half with two shots to one.
Leeds paid the price for not completing the passes and scoring in the first half, and three substitutions at the beginning of the second half bringing on two more youngsters with Crawley scoring twice in three minutes. A hugely disjointed performance with Leeds never settling down and connecting their passes. One to forget and few players not turning up. CAsilla showed why he is not first team choice with some poor goals given.
Man of the match. No one deserved it.
