If Paul Heckingbottom thought we were about to make a late push like many of us had considered he will be wondering what exactly went wrong last night in the most important game of the season. The simple answer was that the players let us all down, they didn’t turn up and they didn’t put in the minimum which is effort and pride for the Leeds United shirt.
That isn’t one or two players either. Take two ends of the scale in terms of popularity and form. Felix Wiedwald was pretty pathetic, he didn’t come for anything and he let the second one go underneath him, truly shocking. Then take Samu Saiz, the best footballer at the club. He was greedy, he didn’t pass the ball, he lost the ball when he did get it and he didn’t give 100%, not one player gave their all last night. Not Jansson, not Berardi, not anyone. The mistakes are what they are, but Adama Traore ran through six players without the hint of a challenge, something that Heckingbottom was bemused at after the game and at what point is letting a goal in better than fouling a player on the halfway line? The players need to have a reality check.
The thing what hurts the most is that we haven’t been playing like that. Even at Derby we put up a fight and almost got the win without playing well. Last we dug in during the first half and got the better of Brentford but last night we had no fight or want to stay in that game. The midfield flopped and hid, the defence crumbled and the front players decided it was easier juts to give up and crave the final whistle after 25 minutes. The season is now probably over, last night was a huge game and of all the games for the players not to show up for that wasn’t the one to do it. Boro rolled us over and humiliated us and that is simply unacceptable. Eunan O’Kane can come out and apologise all he wants, it’s too late after the game. Why not have some bottle on the pitch, at any stage?
Heckingbottom has got what he’s got, the recruitment is clearly an issue and needs to be so much better in the summer. We can’t keep buying from abroad because we need players who can make an instant impact next season. If we had three players from last season we would almost certainly be fighting for automatic promotion, that’s the difference. Take Kyle Bartley, Chris Wood and Rob Green and we have a serious chance of promotion, added to the likes of Saiz, Lasogga and Forshaw. The club keep making mistakes. Mateusz Klich should be walking into this team currently but he’s having a stormer out in Holland again because we deemed him to be a worse player that O’Kane and Phillips? I’ll be there on Wednesday and next season, the season after…that’s the problem and many fans are pointing it out, the fans deserve more than what we saw last night, and this isn’t the first time.
