Leeds United came from behind to beat Leicester City on Friday night, but the outcome could have been quite different if the Foxes had used their chances in the second half.
Leeds are now six points behind Leicester City in the Championship after defeating the Foxes on Friday night, needing a thrilling comeback to secure their ninth consecutive win.
Wout Faes’ 15th-minute goal was cancelled out by Connor Roberts’ and Archie Gray’s debut goals for Leeds, before Dan James’ free kick deflected off Patrick Bamford and through Mads Hermansen to make it 3-1 late on.
Leeds are fortunate as Leicester miss second-half chances.
The Whites had chances in the first half, but the game remained mostly under Leicester’s control until about the 75th minute, when Enzo Maresca’s team pressured Leeds far better than any other Championship side this season.
Such a setup provided the away side with a handful of chances in the second half, as Stephy Mavididi was denied by Illan Meslier, and Patson Daka had a goal controversially ruled out for offside because he was in an offside position, but the ball appeared to come off Georginio Rutter on its way to the Foxes number 20, seconds after Jannik Vestergaard struck the crossbar.
Daka, on the other hand, had a perfectly good chance to make that offside call irrelevant when he was played 1v1, only to side-foot the ball well beyond of the far post in the 72nd minute, eight minutes before the equaliser:
Daka angry as he was subbed off by Maresca. YEP.
Graham Smyth of the Yorkshire Evening Post has provided some off-camera events from the game, with Daka’s shot most likely prompting Maresca to hook him for the latter minutes of the contest.
Daka’s reaction to being removed by his boss was not pleasant, as Smyth describes:
“Daka hurling his glove to the ground in the technical area as he came off, having had the chance to bury the game with the score still 1-0 to the Foxes.”
Leeds needed a slice of luck to spring a comeback against Leicester.
As fantastic as the scenes were from the 80th minute onwards, it would be unfair to suggest that Leeds completely deserved to win on the balance of the game.
Leicester had us on the ropes in the second half with those transition opportunities, and the offside goal seems questionable.
Daka is the biggest offender for allowing us back into the game, squandering a fantastic opportunity with a perplexing finishing technique that opened his foot out towards the far post.
It’s virtually forgotten that the striker assisted Faes’ goal with a stunning header before squandering it with that missed opportunity.
