Leeds United left Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson stunned with their attitude and performance after being reduced to 10 men in their defeat to Nottingham Forest on New Year’s Day.
The Whites fell behind to an early Jack Colback goal and found themselves a man down as Kalvin Phillips was sent off for a dangerous tackle shortly before half time.
However Marcelo Bielsa’s team managed to turn the game on its head with goals from Jack Clarke and Ezgjan Alioski before succumbing to a 4-2 defeat, but Merson was left drooling over their performance regardless.
He told Sky Sports’ News Soccer Saturday New Year’s Day special: ““What a performance from Leeds. They’ve got nine men but you’d think they’d got 13 the way they’re playing. So impressive.”
Opinion
Merson was absolutely right to celebrate the performance of Leeds with 10 men and manager Bielsa will be wondering what might have happened in the second half had his side remained with 11 men on the pitch. Can the blame for defeat be laid at the door of Phillips alone? Absolutely not – but his absence for the second 45 minutes obviously did not help his side’s cause at all, despite the manner in which his teammates managed to go toe-to-toe with the home side at the City Ground. There was plenty of character shown by those in white on Tuesday afternoon and while they might have lost you can imagine Bielsa will be able to take a couple of positives from what he saw. However, the result is really all that matters and it was not good enough to tighten their grip in the Championship title hunt. Improvements are needed – but Merson’s rave review shows that they are still doing something right in defeat.