Leeds United

Leeds United: Alex Crook thinks Diego Llorente was lucky to avoid a red card v Southampton

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Image for Leeds United: Alex Crook thinks Diego Llorente was lucky to avoid a red card v Southampton

TalkSport journalist Alex Crook thinks that Leeds United defender Diego Llorente was lucky to avoid a red card in their recent defeat against Southampton.

Leeds United lost their first game back after the international break as they fell 1-0 to the Saints thanks to a goal from Armando Broja in a result that means they have still only won one game of their opening eight games to start the season.

However, things could have been made much worse for Marcelo Bielsa’s side as a result of an incident that took place during Broja’s winner. In an effort to try and block the Albanian’s strike, United defender Llorente ended up putting in a pretty robust challenge instead.

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And speaking on the TalkSport Gameday podcast, Crook thinks that Llorente can consider himself lucky that he wasn’t sent off over the incident, even when you take into consideration the fact that a goal was scored:

“I think under the laws of the game – it doesn’t matter that the ball was in the back of the net. The referee could still have sent him off, and therefore, should still have sent him off because, as you say, it was a dangerous tackle. So it has to go down as a refereeing error.”

TIF Thoughts on Alex Crook’s comments about Leeds United defender Diego Llorente…

Has Diego Llorente been a successful signing?

Yes

Yes

No

No

You can certainly make a case that Llorente was guilty of endangering the opponent during the incident, so you can see why Crook has suggested that Llorente could have been sent off.

Not only would that have hampered Leeds on the day, leaving them vulnerable to conceding more whilst being down to ten men, but it could also have left them with problems moving forward as well. The club have already got a long list of absent players and they didn’t need another player missing due to suspension.

So perhaps Llorente just needs to be a little bit more careful in future. He’s been a relatively clean player, with just three yellow cards since moving to Leeds, and you just hope that he isn’t going to start getting reckless in an attempt to get Leeds away from the bottom of the table.

In other news: ‘Can’t wait to see you’, ‘Amazing’ – Many Leeds fans blown away by footage of ‘baller’

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Freelance sports journalist & broadcaster.