Another big game, another loss for Leeds United in their quest for Premier League promotion. The Whites needed to put down a marker against challengers Sheffield United, but now they’re face to face with the play-offs.
They collapsed against top-of-the-table Norwich City during their 3-1 loss in February and they failed to show their true colours against the Blades on Saturday. If you can’t win your promotion six-pointers you don’t deserve to go up, and when the pressure’s on, Leeds have proved they can’t.
They now sit in third, five points behind Norwich, who also beat them early in the season, and one point behind Sheffield United. The gap to West Brom in fourth is six points and, despite them bizarrely sacking their manager earlier this month, they could catch them if they don’t regain some backbone soon.
Leeds notoriously falter at this stage of the season, but it seemed like this year would be different. They’ve played some really attractive football at times, and even scraped to victories in matches they would usually lose in, like Bristol City away a couple of weeks ago.
This loss though will have alarm bells ringing and rightly so.
It’ll be a blessing for Marcelo Bielsa to reach an international break because it’ll give the squad time to start afresh. Their next fixtures are Millwall and Birmingham, so they have the opportunity to get back on the horse. But that doesn’t change the fact Norwich and Sheffield now deserve automatic promotion much more than them.
Leeds fans, where do you think it went wrong against Sheffield United at the weekend? Join the discussion by commenting below…
