So Wednesday night’s second leg Championship Play-Off Semi-Final finally arrived and Leeds United took a narrow 1-0 advantage against Derby County into the tie at Elland Road.
With manager Marcelo Bielsa continuing to see his plans interrupted by injury this season, confidence remained high that we would again take another positive result off Frank Lampard’s side and book our place in the Wembley Stadium final against Aston Villa.
The game was exciting and largely a classic but it’ll remain in the memory for all the wrong reasons.
Stuart Dallas gave us the lead but Derby took advantage quickly in the second half and although Dallas completed his brace on the day, the late sending off of Gaetano Berardi saw them get the all important fourth on the night to send us to defeat and aggregate defeat across both games. Our failure to convert reared its head and we paid for it again sadly.
Speaking to the BBC following the fulltime whistle, Bielsa said of the game.
“It’s a painful situation and I’m disappointed. We should have had one or two more in the first half and then the second half broke immediately. We lost control. We had 20 minutes without control and I couldn’t find a solution.”
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