Leeds United: Meslier, Ayling, Firpo, Koch, Raphinha (Rodrigo 60), Llorente, James, Harrison, Philli

Leeds United: Meslier, Ayling, Firpo, Koch, Raphinha (Rodrigo 60), Llorente, James, Harrison, Phillips, Gelhardt (Struijk 29), Klich (Bate 45). Subs not used: Klaesson, Hjelde, Cresswell, Greenwood, Shackleton, Gray.This game went as badly as it’s possible to get for Leeds United and makes relegation even more likely.Stuart Dallas underwent surgery last week and will be out for a lengthy period, meaning that we had to start our first Premier League match without him since winning promotion in 2020. Liam Cooper still hasn’t recovered from his recent knock and also missed out.Arsenal took an early lead thanks to a defensive howler from Illan Meslier, who mis-controlled a routine back pass and allowed Eddie Nketiah to poke the ball into the net from close range. Nketiah (a player who’s out of contract at the end of the season and was open to offers during the January transfer window) scored an excellent second goal five minutes later and it already looked like game over for Leeds….Less than 10 minutes later Luke Ayling (playing his 500th professional game) was sent off for a really reckless challenge, which means we’ll have to play our last three games without another of our first team regulars.After that it was all Arsenal, but some dogged defending from Leeds kept them at bay. Lewis Bate also impressed after replacing Mateusz Klich at half time. It took Leeds until the 65th minute to mount a serious challenge on goal, which resulted in our first corner, from which we scored with our first shot on target - a great finish from Diego Llorente at the far post.But it wasn’t enough….We’re now in the bottom three and it’s difficult to believe we can climb out of it. After this week’s fixtures Everton are a point above us with a game in hand and Burnley are level on points but with a much better goal difference. Their remaining games are also easier than ours and they don’t have to play them with the kind of depleted squad that we’ve got available. It would take a miracle for us to stay up…. -- source link
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