Leeds United   1 (Jansson 88)

Brentford         1  (Maupay, pen 62)

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I’m happy with the point from this one, I’d have probably been happy with a point if it had been offered to us before the game was played as well. In hindsight, looking at the match stats, a point was also probably a “fair” result; Leeds edged the possession, but by nowhere near as big a margin as we normally do and both sides fashioned 13 attempts at goal. Brentford managed to hit the target with 7 of theirs (presumably including the deflected shot that hit the bar, the penalty and a couple of decent saves from Bailey Peacock-Farrell). In contrast, and continuing to show what is possibly our biggest current shortcoming, only 3 of our efforts found the target – again, presumably the Pontus header, Kalvin Phillips’ close range shot that Daniels turned onto the post and the Tyler Roberts shot in the first half that Daniels saved low down to his right. That just is not enough and we need to improve that stat if we are to get where we want to be this season.

So a point was OK, but we all know that had the game been refereed properly and consistently, we would, other things being equal, have won this game even with our poor heading and shooting in front of goal! The fact is Ollie Watkins conned the referee with his clever dive for the Brentford penalty and that was the only reason the game was drawn and not in the record books as a three pointer for Leeds – not, as I have already said, that it would then have been ‘fair’ on Brentford to lose the game.

Lots of the fans who favour the conspiracy theory that ‘everyone at the EFL and the FA is out to get us’ will be vocal again after this one – I’m not one of them. There is no doubt that Jeremey Simpson was dire today; dire in not letting what would have been a fast and free flowing game do exactly that, and dire in the inconsistent way he refereed the game – similar indiscretions being awarded a free kick, a yellow card or waved away with nothing at all seemingly randomly!  The biggest shame of all was that the ref ruined the game but let’s not let that obscure the fact that we need to make more chances and we need to get more of them on target. We should also not lose sight of the fact that we contributed to our own downfall in the lead up to the penalty with a defensive error.

The break has come just in time for Leeds I reckon, we look about ready to get some of those injured players back on the pitch and at times, not so much today but certainly in the second half up at Hull, we looked tired, almost as if the players we’ve been using for the last five or six games have been ‘over playing’, trying desperately to comply with Bielsa’s formational requirements but without the innate skills and guile that players like Hernandez and Roofe bring to the party. Stuart Dallas brought something fresh to the side today too and I’m hoping we can come back in two weeks’ time and put on a display at Blackburn to rival how we started out this campaign. A quarter into the season though and we are right in the mix and look to have the material to weave something special in the coming months.