With Leeds United having a narrow advantage over Derby County in our Championship Play-Off Semi-Final ties, tonight’s second leg was all important.
Having had few problems with Frank Lampard’s side across the entire season, apart from off the pitch obviously, confidence was high ahead of the home leg at Elland Road this evening but injury issues did continue to be a concern for manager Marcelo Bielsa.
The expectation was we’d book our place at Wembley but sadly, that didn’t happen.
I’m not sure how to sum up that game, it was an absolute classic for me – end to end and we saw the best and worst of both sides on the day but ultimately they took a 4-2 victory on the night and Fat Frank Lampard had the last laugh.
Stuart Dallas opened the scoring 24 minutes in, before they levelled on the stroke of halftime. A brighter start from them saw them score one minute after the restart and they made it three goals in minute 58. We rallied and Dallas completed his brace four minutes later, but with 22 minutes remaining it was a tackle too far from Gaetano Berardi and he saw a second yellow card and an early bath and they nicked it on aggregate (4-3) with five minutes remaining.
They even saw a second yellow of their own in stoppage-time, so both sides ended with ten men but it’s heartbreak and despite our injuries we still had the better of the game, the chances overall and the chances on target, but we didn’t take them – yet again.
The disappointment and anger will be rife, but with our injuries in particular, the players deserve top credit for getting this far – but it should’ve been so much more.
Dust off, regroup, strengthen properly, and go again in 2019/20 and learn from what has been a great year, just with a bad end.
Elland Road
Championship Play-Off Semi-Final 2nd Leg
15/05/2019 8:45 pm
Attendance: 36326
Referee: Taylor
| Leeds United | Derby County | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas (24, 62) | Marriott (45, 85), Mount (46), Wilson (pen 58) | ||||||
| Casilla | Roos | ||||||
| Ayling | Bogle | ||||||
| Berardi | Keogh | ||||||
| Cooper | Tomori | ||||||
| Dallas | Malone | ` | |||||
| Phillips | Holmes | 44 | |||||
| Hernandez | Johnson | ||||||
| Shackleton | Wilson | 93 | |||||
| Klich | 86 | Mount | |||||
| Harrison | Lawrence | ||||||
| Bamford | 88 | Bennett | 59 | ||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Peacock-Farrell | Carson | ||||||
| Jansson | Jozefzoon | ||||||
| Brown | 88 | Marriott | 44 | ||||
| Clarke | 86 | Evans | |||||
| Struijk | Cole | 93 | |||||
| Gotts | Huddlestone | 59 | |||||
| Bogusz | Knight | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 22 | Goal attempts | 14 |
| 8 | On Target | 5 |
| 3 | Corners | 3 |
| 17 | Fouls | 15 |
| 5 | Yellow Cards | 4 |
| 1 | Red Cards | 1 |
| 57 | % | 43 |