Leeds United produced a stunning comeback to beat Sheffield United on Monday night and place one hand on automatic promotion to the Premier League, with 12 games left to play.
But things did not all go the way of Daniel Farke’s side at Bramall Lane, with Leeds forced to suffer for the first 20 minutes of the game. Illan Meslier found the going tough, scoring an own goal on 14 minutes.
However, like the Monday beforehand, Leeds came from behind to win. Junior Firpo, Ao Tanaka and Joel Piroe all netted as Leeds secured a 3-1 win to go five points clear and below, are our winners and losers.
Three winners from Leeds win against Sheffield United
Daniel Farke
He might have been on the gantry serving a ban, but Farke proved any remaining doubters wrong once again with his subs. Starting Ilia Gruev was key, with Gruev producing a superb goalline clearance.
Instead of waiting to 70 minutes or later, he brought on Joe Rothwell and Mateo Joseph on 58 minutes. Rothwell was the difference according to Jon Newsome – everything Farke touches, is turning to gold.
Joe Rothwell
In Leeds’ two biggest games of the season in the space of a week, Farke will have been hoping for one or two of his players to come to the fore. By some way, Rothwell has done that – even without starting.
Two assists against Sunderland, and supplying the perfect corner for Pascal Struijk to flick on for Tanaka to score at the back post. Bournemouth want £7.5m for Rothwell and he is making it an absolute no-brainer.
Pascal Struijk
No-one wants to see injuries especially to the club’s best players but Ethan Ampadu’s knee problem saw Struijk return to the side, after his brace against Sunderland. He was superb, winning everything aerially.
Struijk won seven of his nine duels and starred in plenty of other metrics on Monday night. Losing Ampadu is a blow, but it does benefit Struijk ahead of the remaining 12 games.
Pascal Struijk’s stats for Leeds vs Sheffield United
- 90 minutes played, FotMob rating: 7.9 (fifth-best on pitch)
- 109 touches (most on pitch), 84 successful passes (most on pitch)
- 89% passing rate, eight passes into final third (second-most on pitch)
- 11 defensive actions, three tackles completed, six clearances
- Seven duels won out of nine
Three losers from Leeds win against Sheffield United
Illan Meslier
Oh, Illan. Since the Hull disaster and being defended publicly by Farke, Meslier went on a run of six clean sheets. That came to an end at Sunderland but it was another decent showing against them last Monday.
Meslier cupped his ears, full of confidence. He won’t be so confident after last night, with three mistakes in the first 15 minutes including the own goal. Meslier was a picture of relief, when Tanaka scored.
Brenden Aaronson
Aaronson either has a really good game, or a really bad one. There doesn’t seem to be many matches where the £25m man is just steady and Monday night proved to be the latter, losing it again and again.
His performance was summed up by the final few seconds he was on the pitch. Losing the ball cheaply, he worked hard to win it back only to get himself a yellow card for a tackle on Vini Souza. Difficult to defend.
Mateo Joseph
With Leeds trailing 1-0, Joseph was afforded Leeds’ best chance of the match when the ball sat up just eight yards from goal after Joe Rodon’s effort was blocked. But Joseph failed to get his knee over the ball.
Over the bar by some distance, Joseph has failed to rediscover his pre-season touch. It is easy to imagine that if The Whites received a £10m bid like the £10m offer tabled by Real Betis again, they might accept.
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