Bielsa Shows His Class As Leeds Reluctantly Hold Villa To A Draw – Match Stats

Leeds United welcomed Aston Villa to Elland Road for Sunday’s Championship clash and both sides now have one eye on the Play-Off battles ahead.

With Leeds blowing the automatic opportunity with back to back defeats, it was important for us to get back to winning ways to take some momentum and confidence into the season extension, and in a feisty game Bielsa can be largely pleased with what he saw – even though we didn’t take all three points.

We bossed it in terms of possession and chances but real chances were basically level.

Mats Klich put us ahead in the 72nd minute as we chose to play on, with the referee not disagreeing, but Villa had basically stopped after Liam Cooper challenged Jonathan Kodjia, and caught cold – the fact there was also an offside involved – we scored and tempers frayed.

They were reduced to ten men for an apparent elbow on Patrick Bamford but cameras showed no contact, and as the red mist eased, Bielsa basically instructed the side to let Villa equalise in a great show of fair play.

Pontus Jansson maybe didn’t get the message and there would’ve been fans on both sides wondering what was going on.

1-1 was how it ended but we did have further chances to take the win, but I think on this one Bielsa takes the credits and we take the positives from the performance.

Leeds United				Aston Villa
Klich (72)				Adomah (77)
Casilla				Steer
Ayling				Elmohamady
Jansson				Tuanzebe
Cooper				Mings
Dallas			45	Taylor
Phillips				McGinn
Hernandez				Hourihane
Forshaw				Grealish			91
Klich				Green			69
Harrison			45	Kodjia			79
Bamford				El Ghazi
Substitutes
Peacock-Farrell				Whelan			91
Roberts			45	Lansbury
Berardi			45	Jedinak			79
Brown				Bjarnason
Shackleton				Hutton
Clarke				Sarkic
Bogusz				Adomah			69

Game Statistics
27	Goal attempts	13
5	On Target	4
7	Corners	3
14	Fouls	8
4	Yellow Cards	2
0	Red Cards	1
69	%	31