Leeds United

Leeds United: Beren Cross slams Liam Cooper for lack of leadership

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Image for Leeds United: Beren Cross slams Liam Cooper for lack of leadership

Journalist Beren Cross has slammed Leeds United centre-back and captain Liam Cooper for his poor display in the club’s most recent defeat.

In what turned out to be a thrilling but ultimately disappointing Premier League match for the Whites, Jesse Marsch’s men fell to defeat in their final game before the break for the World Cup.

Indeed, Tottenham Hotspur just about managed to claim all three points in a 4-3 win thanks to a late double from Rodrigo Bentancur, but two goals from Rodrigo and Crysencio Summerville’s opener were nearly enough to see Leeds come away with a positive result.

In the end, though, they couldn’t get across the line after a late collapse, and Cross was critical of the Leeds skipper for his inability to help his team see it out.

In his player ratings for LeedsLive, he gave the defender a 5/10 for his display, writing: “Like [Robin] Koch, read most of the danger well and dealt with it. Had to bail out an outnumbered Pascal Struijk at points. Leadership went missing when Leeds disintegrated at the back when 3-2 up.”

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To be fair to the defender, he wasn’t helped by teammate Tyler Adams, who picked up a red card for a ‘petulant, frustrated second yellow late in the game’, in the words of Cross.

Even so, by that stage of the match, the disintegration had already occurred, and Cooper clearly hadn’t shown enough as a leader of a defender to help guide his team to even a point.

His SofaScore match rating was also pretty poor, as he picked up a score of just 6.2 – the lowest of Leeds outfielders to play 90 minutes – while he finished the game with 55 touches, having lost the ball seven times and was also dribbled past once. Therefore, scoreline aside, it could be argued Cooper really didn’t have the best of days.

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