27th September 2025. Premier League.
Ahead of this game, I’m sure, like me, most Leeds fans would have taken a draw if offered. I predicted a draw (1-1) in my regular little piece for the Yorkshire Evening Post (YEP), for example. However, just as we did in the Fulham game, where we conceded a needless goal in the 94th minute, so too today, this time in the 93rd minute, we did it again.
This one was needless in the sense that we just didn’t switch on at a crucial time, possibly distracted by a final substitution, moments earlier; was that a good idea? When the free-kick came in, we failed to win the initial header, and then we lost track of a free man at the back post. It is small details like this that can lead to severe punishment in the Premier League. Maybe we are still adjusting to the division; it must be a huge step up for the squad. At the very least, we need to ensure our focus remains pin-sharp to the last whistle, and, a familiar challenge for Leeds, we must improve our game management at crucial times.
The big positive to take from this game, though, is that, once again, we more than matched a side that has itself travelled up the ladder we now aspire to climb. Bournemouth have established themselves as a more than useful top-half team, and yet, let’s be honest here, we should have beaten them. Perhaps we would have won if we had gained a little more Premier League experience and if some of our players had a little more recent top-level game time under their belts. That must apply to Dominic Calvert-Lewin (DCL), for example. Once again, he was generally superb and is quickly changing people’s minds about whether he was a good recruit. He wins headers all over the pitch, holds up the ball, and gets himself in those goal-poacher spaces. The only criticism that we can level is that, again today, he should have put at least one or two of his three big chances away.
An early opening came his way, but he shot too close to the keeper. A second came when he instinctively poked a wayward Longstaff shot straight at the keeper. And then to round things off, he weakly placed a free header in the one place the keeper had covered. All this in the first half hour of the game. It could have been so different! Surely, he will score plenty of goals once he gets fully reacclimatised to the Premier League.
It's such fine margins at this level, you get a detail wrong and it invariably gets punished. The opening goal came from the Cherries, and I’m sure Farke will be running the replay a few times before training next week. A free-kick was needlessly given away in a dangerous place, similar to the soft one DCL won for us at Molineux that we then punished. This time, we failed to correctly set up a wall, and Semenyo was able to power the ball past both the wall and Brenden Aaronson, who was performing the ‘draft excluder’ role. Details, lads, details. It’s infuriating when such details detract from an otherwise good overall performance. However, we are new to the Premier League, and I’m sure we will learn and improve in the detail, just as we did in the early weeks of last season.
Leeds hit back well, though, not put off by those early misses, and, from a corner, Joe Rodon popped up to power a header home. We are certainly more likely to score from a corner these days – even before we have blooded the two giants we presumably bought with this in mind; Bijol and Bornauw! Leeds had played a good first half, bossing it in all but possession, with more shots, those three big chances, and an xG that, rounded, would have given us a 1–0 half-time lead.
In my opinion, we were even better in the second half, but strangely, we created fewer clear-cut chances despite winning another five corners and firing another ten attempts at goal. We got our noses deservedly ahead in the 54th minute, though, when Sean Longstaff capped a fine game with a snapshot that cannoned in off the post. We never looked in any danger of giving up those extra two points until that moment of naivety in added time.
Let’s go back to the beginning though, we all thought the Cherries would be a tough opponent to beat yet we damn near did it, should have done it, and, after six games we can only really say there has been just the one time where we were outclassed – and that only in the finishing and defending stakes; for large parts of the Arsenal game we matched them too! Surely, we’ve seen enough now to know that we can be regularly competitive in games this season. Our newest recruits are starting to settle in and are already delivering strong performances and scoring goals. We also have players still to step in if injuries occur or form deserts anyone. We are well and truly in the game, folks!
Premier League
Leeds United 2 (Rodon 37’, Longstaff 54’)
AFC Bournemouth 2 (Semenyo 26’, Kroupi 90’)
Leeds: Darlow (GK), Bogle, Gudmundsson, Ampadu (C), Struijk, Rodon, Longstaff, Calvert-Lewin (Nmecha 90’), Aaronson (Tanaka 87’), Stach, Okafor (Harrison 67’). Subs not used: Meslier (GK), James, Piroe, Bijol, Justin, Gruev.
Bournemouth: Petrovic (GK), Truffert, Senesi, Evanilson, Christie (C) (Scott 60’), Adams (Kroupi 81’), Diakité, Kluivert (Tavernier 60’), Jimenez Sanchez (Gannon-Doak 73’), Adli (Brooks 60’), Semenyo. Subs not used: Dennis (GK), Soler, Hill, Milosavljevic.
Venue: Elland Road
Attendance: 36,574
Referee: Michael Oliver
Booked: Aaronson, Ampadu (Leeds) Jimenez Sanchez (Bournemouth)
