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24 min: Bogle clips a ball in behind the Villa defence and Nmecha gets to the byline to cross but Aaronson can’t force it in at the near post. Villa are really under the cosh.
22 min: Stach’s afternoon is over. He landed on his neck when challenging for the ball with Martínez for the goal and the after-effects from that have made him a little groggy. Tanaka comes on in his place as a concussion substitute.
20 min: McGinn tries to send Watkins through the middle but Rodon steps across and times his tackle to perfection on the edge of the area. Really good covering from the Leeds defender.
18 min: Bogle crunches in on a couple of Villa players down the right and McGinn is then penalised for a foul in midfield. Longstaff hoists the free-kick into the box from deep but Martínez gathers Rodon’s header across goal.
16 min: Longstaff is pulled up for a sliding challenge on Digne. He gets man and ball – and a talking-to from the referee. A couple more challenges go in. Pretty aggressive stuff from Leeds, in a good way.
14 min: Buendía sets his sights but loops the free-kick over the ball and well over the bar. No power nor accuracy.
12 min: Villa get a free-kick on the edge of the Leeds box when Longstaff blocks Tielemans’ shot with his arm. This is in shooting range, for sure.
The goal is given! Stach, such a presence in the air, simply got to the ball before Martínez and was not adjudged to have fouled the goalkeeper. Nmecha was on the line to bundle it in after Konsa tried to clear away. Leeds lead!
VAR are checking on an offside from the initial free-kick and probably a possible foul from Stach on Martínez.
GOAL! Leeds 1-0 Aston Villa (Nmecha 8)
The ball’s in the net! Longstaff’s free-kick is sent high up in the air by a stretching Gudmundsson at the back post and Stach jumps up to challenge with Martínez. The ball rebounds off Nmecha and ends up in the net. Will it count?
7 min: Okafor drives at the Villa defence and Cash gets a foot in. Leeds continue to probe and Rogers brings down Aaronson on the edge of the box. Longstaff will toss it in.
6 min: Leeds are struggling to make it stick to Nmecha, the ball pinging off the striker and out of play. Calvert-Lewin is watching on stone-faced from the bench.
4 min: Bogle goes down after getting a boot from Digne after the Villa left-back clears. He looks OK but it’s a sore one.
2 min: Villa settle into the game straight away. Stach is penalised for a foul on McGinn in midfield.
Kick-off
Leeds’ Sean Longstaff gets the ball rolling.
The teams are out at a damp Elland Road, with very grey skies overhead. Kick-off is next.
Jeremy Boyce writes in on the state of the Leeds dugout:
I’m sure I speak for many suffering supporters when I say that their biggest mistake was sacking Bielsa. True enough, things were looking bleak at the moment he departed, but frankly I’d rather have him than any number of Jesse Marsches or Big Sams, even Howard Wilkinsons, the last man to bring the title back home, and who then sold the jewel in that crown Cantona to the hated enemy over the Pennines, and we all know what he did for them from that point.
Better to go down guns blazing than meekly trying to eke out the necessary points with drab footie and ineffective tactics. Bielsa would have had them back up in no time and spared us some lost seasons trying to scrap our way back up. 0-3 and grim December coming.
It’s astonishing to think that Sam Allardyce was managing Leeds in the Premier League just two years ago.
Leeds have got some tricky fixtures coming up after today: Manchester City (a), Chelsea (h), Liverpool (h). Daniel Farke could soon come under pretty significant pressure, as Louise Taylor has been writing this week:
Although Farke maintains “no one is panicking”, his team have lost four of their past five league games and sit 18th. While 11 points from 11 matches is hardly disastrous for a promoted side, December looks a potentially dangerous month in West Yorkshire with Chelsea and Liverpool visiting Elland Road. Leeds also have to make a tricky trip to Manchester City before November is out. Lose those and Farke knows his position would, perhaps unfairly, come under serious scrutiny. How a toothless Leeds could do with reprising their last win against Villa, a 3-0 triumph at Villa Park in October 2020. It featured a Patrick Bamford hat-trick, but with injuries subsequently disrupting the forward’s career the former Leeds No 9 is now on a short-term deal at Sheffield United and Farke has struggled to find an incisive, elite-level replacement.
Ollie Watkins has never scored against Leeds in 12 appearances (including 11 starts) against them for Villa and Brentford across the Premier League and Championship.
His involvement at next summer’s World Cup looks in doubt after he was left out of Thomas Tuchel’s latest England squad. He’s only got one goal in 16 games for Villa this season in all competitions.
John McGinn should be full of beans today after his involvement in Scotland’s successful, and quite frankly ridiculous, World Cup qualifying campaign.
Amid Scott McTominay’s acrobatics, Kieran Tierney’s accuracy and Kenny McLean’s audacity, McGinn was the driver of Scotland’s hopes in the middle of the park and forced both of Rasmus Kristiansen’s yellow cards against Denmark.
He knows his role in Unai Emery’s Villa team down to a tee, coming in off the right wing to support Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins. Emi Buendía does the same off the left. Leeds are going to have their work cut out against those two.
It’s a busy lunchtime in Yorkshire: Sheffield United lead Wednesday in the Steel City derby at Hillsborough. John Brewin has updates:
Form guide (last six): Leeds DLLWLL. Aston Villa WWWWLW.
Looks ominous for Leeds who, after a decent start, are being dragged into the relegation scrap they were perhaps expected to be part of in the first place. They dropped into the bottom three after yesterday’s results.
Villa are one of the form teams in the league. Unai Emery, talking to TV just now, says his team must keep improving having picked up five wins out of their last six. He cites their mentality and structure as key factors in the uptick in results and says he’s “very motivated” and “so, so excited” about what’s to come.
Starting lineups
Leeds (4-3-3): Perri; Bogle, Rodon, Struijk, Gudmundsson; Longstaff, Ampadu, Stach; Aaronson, Nmecha, Okafor.
Subs: Darlow, James, Calvert-Lewin, Piroe, Bijol, Tanaka, Justin,
Gnonto, Gruev.
Daniel Farke makes one change from the defeat to Nottingham Forest two weeks ago – Pascal Struijk comes in for Jaka Bijol at centre-back.
Aston Villa (4-4-1-1): Martínez; Cash, Konsa, Torres, Digne; McGinn,
Kamara, Tielemans, Buendía; Rogers; Watkins.
Subs: Bizot, Lindelöf, Barkley, Malen, Sancho, Maatsen, Bogarde, Guessand, Hemmings.
Villa also make just the one change from their last game – a 4-0 home defeat of Bournemouth – with Youri Tielemans in for the injured Amadou Onana in midfield.
Preamble
Two of English football’s grandest names face off at Elland Road this afternoon as Leeds host Aston Villa in the Premier League. Daniel Farke and Unai Emery meet in opposing dugouts for the first time in their careers and both will be looking for points they can put towards their diverging goals this season.
It’s a Championship meeting between these two teams that lingers most in the recent memory, with that controversial Mateusz Klich goal and Marcelo Bielsa then ordering his players to let Albert Adomah equalise for Villa straight from kick-off. Any drama that comes close to that today will keep us entertained.
Kick-off is at 2pm (GMT) and team news is coming right up. You can get in touch by email to offer your thoughts on the game or the season as a whole.
