1 week ago
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Five defeats in six and the anxiety is beginning to show for Leeds. For the second game in a row they took an early lead through Lukas Nmecha but ended up with nothing, Morgan Rogers producing a pair of remarkable finishes to lift Aston Villa into the Champions League qualification slots. Leeds remain in the relegation zone.
Villa began the season apparently still feeling the hangover from the defeat at Old Trafford on the final weekend of the last campaign that cost them Champions League football. But having failed to win any of their first six games, they have won nine of their last 11 in all competitions, the depth of their squad beginning to tell. Donyell Malen began on the bench and, while he may not have scored in his third successive game, his arrival at half-time shifted the momentum of the game as Villa became only the second away side in 26 to win in the league at Elland Road.
When Southampton lost at Tottenham last season to confirm their relegation last April, their manager Ivan Juric, weary and apparently beyond caring about diplomatic niceties, said that he had expected his side to be technically and tactically inferior to other Premier League opponents but had been surprised by how physically inferior they had been. The Premier League is a step up from the Championship in every way.
The promoted sides seem to have taken that message on board. One of the reasons that, as a trio, they have started the season so encouragingly is that they have all reinforced with physically imposing players. For three-quarters of the first half on Sunday, Villa struggled to live with Leeds’s aggression. Had Leeds’s ferocity been allied to slightly more finesse or guile, they could have effectively had the game won before Villa at last began to settle in the final minutes before the break.
As it was, their main threat was set plays, particularly those delivered by the right boot of Sean Longstaff. It was his free-kick that brought the opener after eight minutes. The goal was ugly, and Villa protested, but Emi Martínez was far too easily distracted as Nmecha challenged him, allowing Anton Stach to divert the ball goalwards with his back. Ezri Konsa’s hack off the line then hit Nmecha and rebounded over the line.
Stach paid for his intervention, banging his head on the ground as he landed which led to him being removed a few minutes later. Martínez may have been at fault for the opener, but he did get down sharply to keep out a Brendan Aaronson snapshot after a corner had been half cleared. He made another fine save late on to keep out a Pascal Struijk header for another free-kick.
The problem is sustaining that level of intensity. Leeds visibly tired towards the end of the first half and struggled to pick it up in the second, when Nmecha was left far more isolated than he had been in the first, the midfield no longer able to get forward to support him. That in turn allowed Villa more of the ball and, under less pressure, they began to use it rather better. Rogers and Ollie Watkins had barely been involved until the 40th minute but offered a hint of danger before half-time, Watkins whipping a curling effort just wide. It was not enough, though, to convince Unai Emery that he did not need to make changes and brought on the Dutch duo of Malen and Ian Maatsen at half-time.
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Within two minutes of the restart, the change had paid off, Malen finding space in the right side of the penalty area, taking a cutback from Lucas Digne and drilling over a low cross than Rogers converted with a deft flick. His second, 15 minutes from time, was even better, a strange dipping free-kick from the edge of the box whose startlingly sharp parabola confounded Lucas Perri as it got up and down over the wall. He ran straight to the Villa set-piece coach Austin MacPhee to celebrate.
Leeds seemed to have equalised almost immediately, only for replays to show that Dan James’s cross-shot had been diverted in by the left hand of Dominic Calvert-Lewin. They applied pressure after that, but that incapacity to create chances from open play cost them. With Manchester City and Chelsea next up, in the short term at least the anxiety is only likely to get worse.
