Leeds United’s three game winning streak came to a screeching halt last night as they were on the wrong end of a 1-0 result away against Stoke City at the BET365 Stadium.
A late Patrick Bamford penalty miss proved costly for United who’s pursuit of the automatic promotion places suffered another set back.
It was Stoke who started the better of the two teams as Leeds struggled to build any momentum.
The Potters’ first chance of the game came when Ki-Jana Hoever dug out a cross from an acute angle that was met by Andre Vidigal, but his header was straight at Illan Meslier.
Georginio Rutter was the creative spark again for Leeds last night as he crafted out their first real chance of the game. He slotted a ball into the path of Joel Piroe who’s right footed effort was denied by the foot of Mark Travers in the Stoke goal.
Stoke came close to taking the lead on the brink of half time as Ryan Mmaee showed great determination to latch onto a loose ball in the box.
Archie Gray attempted to shield the ball so Meslier could come and collect, but Mmaee showed great strength and determination to ease the youngster aside before poking the ball towards goal. This forced Meslier to make a save before a Pascal Struijk clearance prevented the ball from trickling over the line.
Leeds started the second half better but were still unable to breach the Stoke defence.
It was Piroe’s turn to be the provider this time when he played in Rutter, but his shot was from a tough angle and was easily dealt with by Travers.
Leeds were gifted an incredible chance to take the lead with around 15 minutes to go despite them not being at their best.
Substitute Patrick Bamford was brought down in the area by Ben Pearson. Rutter did well to emerge with the ball in a congested area before playing a beautiful ball round the corner to Bamford in the build up to the penalty incident.
It was Bamford who stepped up to take the penalty, but he couldn’t keep it down and fired well over the bar in what was his third consecutive penalty miss.
After this Stoke’s tails were firmly up and they managed to take the lead with ten minutes to go.
A corner towards the near post was Leeds’ undoing yet again. This one was met well by substitute Wesley Moraes who’s header crashed off the crossbar before bouncing off the face of Struijk, resulting in an own goal.
Speaking after the game, Leeds United manager Daniel Farke said:
“If you look on the statistics, you would imagine we’d be travelling back with points. We should have won this game or at least drawn. We were not at our best in possession. But this league is relentless.”
Leeds are back in action on Saturday as Elland Road plays host to a West Yorkshire derby between them and Huddersfield Town.