Leeds United 1 - West Bromwich Albion 1

Date:	Saturday 1st March 2025
Competition:	Sky Bet Championship
Leeds: 6.8	(4-2-3-1) Meslier, Bogle, Rodon, Struijk, Firpo, Rothwell, Tanaka, James, Aaronson (Joseph, 72), Solomon (Gnonto, 79), Piroe Unused subs: Darlow, Guilavogui, Ramazani, Byram, Schmidt, Debayo
WBA: 6.6	(4-2-3-1) Wildsmith 4.7, Furlong 5.6, Bartley 5.8, Heggem 7.1, Styles 5.9, Molumby 6.1, Mowatt 6.0, Price 6.6 (Fellows, 83 4.9), Swift 6.1 (Diangana, 69 4.5), Johnston 6.7 (Dike, 83 5.0), Armstrong 5.3 (Grant, 69 4.7) Unused subs: Griffiths, Holgate, Lankshear, Diakité, Bany Manager: Tony Mowbray 6.4
Scorers:	Firpo (9); Furlong (39)
Referee:	Farai Hallam 5.9
Attendance:	36,705 Home Fans 6.7 Away Fans 7.3

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Ratings submitted so far: 16

Brendan Clegg:

A good point we’d have taken before the game BUT, for me anyway, a startling reminder of how weak the league is this year. Leeds are good but they are not outstanding, and given we were at least 3 players away from our best 11 when all are fit, if we can hang on to the playoffs for now and get that best team together with 3 or 4 games to go I feel like we have a huge chance here. (My best 11 would have Ajayi partnering Bartley, Fellows starting and Maja playing behind AA up front)

The manager would also have to pick that team of course, which brings me to the starting lineup. Like many I reckon… Swift’s inclusion was baffling, it also pushed Price wide out of his best position for us and relegated Fellows to the bench.

Many may not agree with my next point - I feel almost like it is deluded arrogance to not start Fellows in every game unless he is injured or his attitude stinks. Neither are the case… he’s a threat even when not playing great and he’s massively improved defensively. We are not a good enough team to ‘rotate’ our best players.

From my vantage point, so far to the right that I was outside of the stadium but just about able to see the entire pitch, we started poorly, kept giving the ball away but created a great chance in one move that I think Swift fluffed when he had to score.

Their opener was pretty bad… too easy to open us up on the right, too easy to cross, Bartley not dealing with it and I’ve no idea what the keeper was doing.

There were a few other moments where we needed Heggem to rescue us.

We did get into it eventually and at least got hold of the ball, and I thought MJ in particular helped us with his quick feet.

Our equaliser was a bit odd. Deffo a free kick which seemed to be scuffed too high and with no pace. I don’t know if Furlong meant his header or was just nodding it back but in it went and wild we went.

We looked more likely to score as the half came to a close but you always felt Leeds had danger in them.

Second half we had a good 5 or 10 minutes before we lost control and it started to feel like when not if Leeds would score. We battled a d fought with little much going the other way and it was crying for subs by the time Mowbray made changes.

The subs gave us energy even though I’m not sure I agreed with the choices, sequence or timing.

Dike gave us presence we he came in and Fellows was put in with a few to go but his poor touch allowed the defence to recover.

Leeds had a few more goes and some close opportunities as we saw it out.

Wildsmith - 6 kicking poor and can’t be happy with the goal.
Furlong - 6 Erratic. Goal and good touches… poor choices and bad passes
Bartley - 6 finding his way back
Heggem - 7 Superb
Styles - 5 Recovered well but had a tough time
Price - 6 loved the effort but wrong position for me
Mowatt - 6 scrapped and battled
Molumby - 6 as above, brought the fight
MJ - 7 lively, willing to take it in tight areas
Swift - 5 I’ve read others think he did well. Not enough for me.
AA - 6 Good touches, needed support

Subs - All sixes but I thought Dike put himself about well and looked closer to it.

Kev Buckley:

Leeds Utd 1 Albion 1: A most un-Mowbray like performance

It used to be the perceived wisdom that Mowbray's sides had to attack because he couldn't set a side up to defend, but yet here, against a table-topping Leeds side, they not only held out admirably, but could, with just a little more composure, have taken all three points.

Bartley replaced Ajayi at the back, but the manager pulled a rabbit out of the hat up front, in dropping Fellows to the bench and moving Price out wide, with Swift coming in to start as the No10.

Leeds put Albion under the cosh from the off but, in the sixth minute, Price did a pretty decent impression of Fellows and pulled the ball back to the edge of the box where Swift had timed his run to perfection, so as to meet the ball with time and space to shoot, however the curvature in space and time, within which his shot travelled, saw it slide just wide of the post with the keeper nowhere.

A couple of minutes later though, and it was "Mowbray defending" as it's worst: a combination Bartly completely losing the player running in behind him and Wildsmith rushing out and getting nowhere near the ball seeing that ball headed, unchallenged, into an empty net.

One three-minute period of play in the middle of the half saw last ditch tackles made at both ends in quick succession before a Leeds player, left all alone at our our back-left post, shot off-taget.

As the hour-half passed, Armstrong was played in down the inside-left channel but couldn't get enough onto his flick over the keeper sliding out to block his shot and, although it went over the keeper's dive, it merely trickled towards the line before being cleared.

On thirty-eight though, an Albion free-kick from the right, delivered towards the back post, reached Furlong and he steered his free header back across and into the far side netting for an equaliser that Albion, given how well they'd played since going behind, deserved.

Mowbray's current Albion probably defended as well as any of his Albion sides have, in the first twenty five minutes after the restart, at which point the changes started, Diangana replacing Swift but also, somewhat surprisingly, given his well-known ineffectiveness as a number nine, Grant replacing Armstrong, even though Dike had been sitting alongside Grant on the bench.

Ten minutes after those changes, it would be Furlong, off all people popping up in the centre-forward area, central and on the edge of the six-yard box, heading just over after Mikey Johnston had to got to the bye-line and delivered an inviting cross.

Shortly after that Leeds scythed Albion apart down our right but the attacker allowed to cut in on goal shot against the bar from a narrow angle.

With ten to go in normal time, Price and Johnston came off for Fellows and Dike, although as stoppage time began, it would be the right-winger galloping away through the middle after Diangana had delivered a ball into acres of space behind the pushed-up-to-halfway Leeds backline.

Running onto the ball from inside his own half, his first touch saw him reach the edge of the box still ahead of the defenders, but his second was poor and allowed one of the chasing pair to do enough to snuff out the chance.

Leeds would still have time to go close once more, as Albion's set up seemed to afford attacking players a lot of time on the ball in front of our back four, but they failed to hit the target from the chance they worked down our left

All-in-all then, a most un-Mowbray like performance might have seen us come away with all three points, by scoring on the break, and in some ways, the way in which the players only seemed to start to take the game by the scruff of the neck having gone behind, reeked of a Corberan-era mindset.

Along those lines, few sides will go to Elland Road and see as much of the ball as we did, although it took us a while to stop showing them as much respect as we appeared to start to do, and I'd point to Mowbray starting Price on the right, ahead of Fellows, as the clearest evidence of that. Worth noting too that both sides were guilty of mis-placing passes throughout the game, something which certainly added to the evenness of it.

It almost goes without saying now that "results elsewhere mean that Albion remain in the top six on goal difference".