Preston v Leeds United

Saturday 14th December 2024 - Deepdale

2024/25 Season

After a week of paperwork coming out of my ears, hopefully I am getting on top of things at home. As I said on my reel this morning before heading to Preston for our last away game before Christmas, we’ve had more than our fair share of traumas over the last 6 years culminating with the death of my husband in October. I know there are plenty of others going through their own traumas, treatments or other battles, so I wish them all the luck in the world and am sending big hugs their way. I know how much the support of the Leeds United family has meant to me and my family. I also want to say a big thank you to Joe Rodon for making a little girl very happy today when he gave her his shirt after the game. My granddaughter has struggled so much since her Opa has died and the happiness you gave her today was very much needed. Hopefully we can arrange to get the shirt signed for her soon.

Team: Meslier, Struijk, Bogle, Byram, James, Rothwell, Gnonto, Piroe, Aaronson, Tanaka, Rodon.

Subs:  Bamford for Gnonto (65), Ramazani for Aaronson (65), Solomon for Rothwell (77), Ampadu for Byram (82), Joseph for Bogle (82).

Subs not used:  Darlow, Guilavogui, Schmidt, Wöber.

Leeds drew the game 1-1 with an own goal by Whatmough under challenge from Joseph giving us an equaliser (90+3).

Attendance:  19,508, 5,676 Leeds fans.

Referee:  John Busby.

Booked: James.

The first twenty minutes of the game were very scrappy and underwhelming because although we had a lot of possession, we didn’t really do much with it. After another attack towards over 5,000 Leeds fans broke down, we were made to pay the price for our defence being so far forward as Preston raced to the other end to take the lead. It wasn’t a surprise though as we could see it coming as they’d already had a counterattack. The game started being littered with plenty of fouls, but the bad ones were committed by Preston, and they were lucky that their man stayed on the field after a foul on Bogle. Even if it wasn’t a straight red, he had already been booked so should have been sent off. Sadly, it was Farke who ended up with a yellow card. Preston obviously knew he should have been sent off and that he was lucky to stay on the pitch as he was subbed at half time. The referee lost it in my opinion with some of the decisions he made before half time too. Games at Preston in recent years have always been quite feisty from them for some reason. Leeds did get in a good position to score only to see Aaronson’s shot go way over the goal.

The second half saw us not make any changes, but I thought we should have done. I wanted Farke to prove me wrong, but it felt like we wouldn’t score in a month of Sundays when we shot straight at the keeper or blasted the ball over the goal. Although we had most of the ball, there was always a danger of another breakaway from Preston but mostly they were kept quiet. Realistically, it was when we had all five subs on the pitch that we started to look better as a team. Ramazani saw his deflected shot tipped behind from the keeper. Bamford had a great chance to equalise, but his backheel went wide. James had been putting some great low crosses into the box which were causing problems for Preston. He was then unlucky not to score when his shot bounced back off the crossbar.  When four minutes of injury time was added on, there was still time to get something out of the game and I was happy if we got a draw at this point. I just didn’t want to lose the game. Joseph had a shot saved by the keeper but then we certainly got our wish when we equalised with a minute of injury time left to the delight of the team and the fans. Thankfully we got a welcome point and not a defeat.

Overall, it wasn’t a good game, but the game didn’t flow for us as I said until the five subs were on the pitch. Maybe we were more balanced or up for it by then, but who knows. On to our last home game before Christmas against Oxford next week so see you then.

LUFC – Marching on Together!