Leeds United v Derby 7th December 2024 at Elland Road
With the stormy weather on its way, I knew it would be challenging for many of our fans getting to the game today. Seeing flights and trains cancelled, I hope most of you managed to get to the game. We were lucky as it was still relatively calm as we headed to Leeds and got to the Holbeck Club in record time before heading to the ground. It was good to see my husband’s wreath from the Halifax Whites was still intact as my family met up for photos. Thoughts with the family of my hero Billy Bremner on the 27th anniversary of his death today.
The days are passing so quickly that I’m just going through the motions with no thoughts on the forthcoming game, just seeing what happens on the pitch. After my gut instincts last weekend with a churning stomach, it is definitely better than worrying about how we will play and scores etc. Just a shout out for Jacob the Pilot, GMB Pride of Britain winner who raised over £160,000 in memory of his mum. His wish was to be a mascot at Leeds United and today he got his wish to come out with the team. I hope he had a great day AND he got his predicted score right. He’s definitely better at predicting scores than I am and he won a bet with a Derby fan too.
Team: Meslier, Struijk, Rodon, Bogle, James, Piroe, Aaronson, Firpo, Rothwell, Tanaka, Solomon.
Subs: Wöber for Firpo (injured 21), Gnonto for Solomon (68), Joseph for Aaronson (68), Ramazani for James (85), Guilavogui for Rothwell (85).
Subs not used: Darlow, Bamford, Ampadu, Schmidt.
Leeds won the game 2-0 with Rodon (39), Wober (44), both scoring their first Leeds goal.
Attendance: 36,468, 2,838 Derby fans.
Referee: Matthew Donohue.
Booked: No Leeds players.
The first thing that happened was that we were turned around to attack the Kop in the first half. It was a quiet start to the game with challenging conditions, but we had to make changes when Firpo went down injured. As he went straight down the tunnel to the Derby fans singing, he’d had enough, it didn’t look good. Leeds had most of the game, but the crowd started jeering their keeper when the time wasting started very early on. Despite the referee watching him and telling him to hurry up, he deliberately took his time to take the goal kick. I was hoping that this would come back to bite him later in the game. To be fair to the ref, he let a few things go on Derby where I thought he’d blow for a free kick but didn’t and did keep the game flowing despite some fouls on us. Rodon came very near to opening the scoring with a header from a corner, but it went wide of the goal. With one attack Bogle was running forwards with the ball and James was in acres of space to the right of him. Instead of passing to him, he ignored him despite the Kop screaming at him to pass the ball, with the attack eventually breaking down. Aaronson saw his shot saved by the keeper after Tanaka gave him the ball and he did a 90 degree turn before shooting. Leeds then scored from the corner with Rodon this time making no mistake as he headed the ball into the net. Just as half time approached, we increased our lead after some good work by James on the left of us and his forward pass to Aaronson was crossed into the middle where the deflected ball was put it into the net by Wöber right in front of the keeper. That was a good, timed goal to give us some breathing space.
The second half saw Leeds carry on attacking and Solomon saw his shot go past the upright. It just needed to curl into the other side of the post. Their keeper made saves from James, Tanaka and Piroe before Derby got their first chance on goal on 63 minutes. I’ll admit I couldn’t rest then as they made changes and kept getting stronger. It only took them to get one goal back and we would have been under pressure. There wasn’t too much danger to be honest, but I couldn’t relax too early. Looking at my photos, it looks like we should have had a penalty too with Piroe getting his shirt pulled and dragged down in the area. In the end Derby got their comeuppance with the early time wasting as we got the win, another three points, a clean sheet and returned to the top of the table for a short while at least.
The storm had arrived when we left Elland Road after the game as the winds had picked up so for once I was glad, we had had an early kick off and were on our way home. I did delay leaving Billy’s statue as I spoke with the Malta Whites, but the rest of my family went back to the car without me as they were freezing! Will definitely bring my gloves for the Boro game on Tuesday as the wind chill certainly got its grip today. Safe travels home everyone and see you then, LUFC – Marching on Together!
