Leeds United head coach Thomas Christiansen felt his side could have done better after dropping their first points of the season in a goalless draw against Preston North End.
Leeds struggled to break down a very well organised Preston side for the first hour and a goalkeeper in good form then denied them after the visitors had been reduced to ten-men.
Preston chased and harried Leeds into making mistakes for the first hour as the home side struggled to test Chris Maxwell in the Preston goal.
Preston midfielder Ben Pearson was the influence for the visitors, as he snapped into every tackle, winning the battle in midfield, but the game changed when he was sent off just after the hour.
The sending off changed the game in Leeds favour with Preston now sitting back and trying to frustrate the home side and a mixture of great goalkeeping from Maxwell and gamesmanship from the Preston side, who took every opportunity to wind down the clock, left Leeds frustrated and Christiansen admitted it was a tough game.
“The result was a little bit like the performance, we could have done better and if we had, we would surely have taken the three points,” Christiansen told the Leeds United official website.
“In the end, we kept a clean sheet which is important and took a point, we played against a very good team who were organised and last week took three points from Sheffield Wednesday.
“It wasn`t easy, we needed to move the ball faster, we didn`t have the rhythm in the game to break Preston down.
“Preston were really compact and if you don`t move them, you don`t create the spaces, we needed to be quick and without it, it is difficult to open anybody in this division.
“All of the games in this league are very tough, you can`t be a favourite before the game, you have to prove it on the pitch.
“I would have liked to have secured the three points, but we have to take the one and of course we didn`t lose.”
Chris Wood had Leeds best chance to win the game. The New Zealand international striker, found himself one-on-one with Maxwell after a sublime ball from Pablo Hernandez but the Preston goalkeeper denied the striker his second goal of the season.
Substitute Samu Saiz, who scored a hat-trick in midweek, was then found by a sublime cross but his weak header was easy for Maxwell.
Maxwell then produced a great double save to deny Stuart Dallas and then Hernandez from the rebound.
With Leeds going all out for the win, they were almost caught out in injury time but they were relieved to see Josh Harrop`s effort come back off the crossbar.
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