Until The World Stops Going Round

Stoppage time drama, shit refereeing....again, pathetic celebrations, surprise surprise, 8 games to go.

On Sunday Leeds travelled to Croydon in London's deep south to face Crystal Palace. London has rarely been a happy hunting ground for Leeds, but this time we left with a much needed point. After 2 defeats on the bounce at Elland Road, it's probably a good point, but it could've, and should've, been more.

Stoppage time drama

After a fairly nondescript first 45 minutes the game suddenly came alive in stoppage time. First, the hauntingly pale Will Hughes rose highest to meet a Leeds corner, unfortunately for him, though, it was with his hand. To the surprise of the travelling Leeds fans, penalty was actually awarded; the obviousness of the decision not necessarily a guarantee when it comes to Leeds. 

In fairness to Hughes, it was the first bit of semi-convincing handling from a Palace point of view; earlier in the game Benitez, deputising in goal for Palace, almost gifted Leeds a goal when he caught Bijol’s header whilst standing well over his own line. The goal line technology showed how razor close Benitez came to gifting Leeds a 1-0 lead.

Luckily for Hughes and co, Calvert-Lewin stepped up to hit the resulting penalty low and wide. Calvert-Lewin has by and large performed very well this season, but that was poor - no excuses for not at least hitting the target. Typical Leeds, though. Another thing to go against us. If that were at the other end, it would've been a certain goal because as Leeds fans know, no one misses a penalty against us.

More shambolic refereeing

Just when things seemed like they couldn't get any worse, they inevitably did. A clumsy, yet completely innocuous challenge from Gudmundsson saw the referee, Thomas Brammall, deem it worthy of a second yellow card. How on earth did he come to that conclusion I hear you ask? Well, it turned out the fucking idiot forgot that he'd already booked Gudmundsson. Of course, by the time he realised his basic error it was too late, the decision was made and VAR wasn't able to intervene as it wasn’t a straight red.

To make matters worse, in the second half Brammall really compounded his incompetent brand of refereeing by failing to send off Brennan Johnson for a far more cynical and obvious offence. Possibly working under the false pretence that two wrongs don't make a right (they absolutely fucking do in this case), the coward kept his cards to himself.

Brammall's appallingly shit display comes after a string of atrocious decisions that have gone against us in recent weeks. I don't buy into the conspiracy theory that there is an 'anti-Leeds agenda' at play here, but I also don't believe it when 'experts' say 'these things even themselves out over the course of a season'. Don't get me wrong, I really hope they do, because if that is the case then our remaining opponents are going to be subjected to many, many soft penalties and red cards. Staying up should be a piece of piss if that’s the case.

Pathetic Palace

Another jarring moment from the whole red-card incident was the way in which some no-mark Palace player cheered when seeing the red card brandished in Gudmundsson's direction. I've seen goals celebrated with less vigour. Turns out he's a mere 19 year-old, and I'm sure a rational, non-petty Leeds fan will simply chalk it up to immature teenage exuberance. I, however, am not that type of fan, and I implore all the other irrational and petty Leeds fans to join me in wishing him nothing but the absolute worst throughout the rest of his career.

Surprise surprise

It will come as no surprise to anyone with eyes that, after wracking their brains the utterly pointless Key Match Incidents (KMI) panel concluded that Luke O'Nien's headlock-cum-choke slam on Pascal Struijk was indeed a penalty. Colour me shocked. I'm just glad a group of undoubtedly well-compensated individuals managed to eventually reach a blatantly obvious verdict, long after the fact, when nothing can be done to rectify it. Very fucking helpful.

8 games to go

After the weekend's results, everything has stayed the exact same in terms of the Premier League table. Leeds, West Ham, Spurs, and Forest all drew. Some of those results are better than others (Spurs actually showing some backbone and scoring a last minute equaliser against Liverpool was particularly disappointing), but with 8 games to go survival is still in our hands. I'm still a firm believer that we will get enough points from our home games - frankly, if we don't, we deserve to go down.