23rd August 2025. EFL Premier League.
Well that was a bit of a lesson for us! If any of us was getting carried away by the performance and result against Everton last Monday, this brought us quickly back down to earth.
Arsenal are a top team and will surely be up there amongst the pace setters all season and yet, for half an hour, Leeds held firm. Indeed, but for a decent save, Pascal Struijk’s early header could have given us the lead! Okay, we were pinned back in our own half for much of the rest of that time, but we seemed to be dealing with the Arsenal quality fairly well, without too many close calls.
Then, in the space of 14 minutes we simply collapsed. We had been confident following the recruitment of a number of six foot plus giants that we’d be much more adept at defending corners this season, but today that was not evident at all. Even accepting that Arsenal are currently the division’s masters at scoring from corners we didn’t look great at it.
According to Wikipedia, Jurrien Timber is less than six feet tall, yet he was allowed to get his head to the ball to glance home the Arsenal opener on 34 minutes. Going in at half time a goal down would have been a worthy effort but to then give Saka the freedom of the place seconds before the break was suicidal. Even so, Lucas Perri didn’t seem to be exactly alert to the situation as Saka blasted the ball straight through him. Both the defending and the keeping were a worry there.
Similarly, the way Gyökeres was allowed to waltz into our area and then ease past both Jayden Bogle and Pascal Struijk made me wince, not to mention another apparently slow reaction by Perri. Things really started to unravel then as another left wing Arsenal corner was allowed to ricochet around in our six yard box before Timber again pounced to fire home from close range. It had been 14 minutes of carnage at the back for Leeds.
Looking at replays just now of the penalty I have to say I think we were hard done by there, it looked like a clear dive to me; certainly the mere touch on the lad’s toe should not have been enough to send him spiralling to the turf. Ho hum, it didn’t matter by that stage.
So, as good as Arsenal were at times – quick, clever, sharp, full of energy – Leeds will not be best pleased when they look back at this game. We need to look long and hard at the way we defend corners – other teams will watch our performance today and think we are actually a soft touch despite those giant defenders we have. Lucas Perri will need to have a good look at his performance too – he has received one of the lowest player ratings I can ever remember seeing for his efforts today from several websites so it can’t be just me thinking he had a bit of a stinker.
At the end of the day though we all know that our season will not be defined by our trips to the top teams, it is games against the lesser teams that we need to ensure get our best attention and best performances just like we put in against Everton. But to even get points against some of those other teams we simply have to be better than we were today. It’s early days so there is plenty of time to put things right but, please Leeds, learn some of these lessons and do it quickly.
