Wembley Woe

Leeds United's Wembley woes continued again on Sunday; this time Chelsea were the spoiling party. Granted, losing in a FA Cup semi-final to a hedge-fund team who’ve spent billions doesn’t sting quite as much as losing a play-off final (when the majority of our previous Wembley heartaches have taken place). But still, it was another opportunity squandered, another game we let slip through our grasp.

4 losses, 0 goals

Even scoring at Wembley has eluded Leeds in the last 4 visits to the national stadium. In fact, the last time Leeds netted at Wembley was all the way back in the 1992 Charity Shield game against Liverpool. Since then we’ve lost 3-0 to Villa in the 1996 League Cup final; 1-0 to Doncaster in the League One play-off final; 1-0 to Southampton in the Championship play-off final; and now, 1-0 to Chelsea in an FA Cup semi-final. I don’t know what it is about that stadium, but it’s become increasingly unkind to us over time.

Missed Opportunities

It didn’t have to be like this, though. With 14 minutes on the clock, a lovely Leeds passing move saw Dominic Calvert-Lewin play Aaronson clean through on goal. Unfortunately, his low shot was kept out by the foot of Robert Sanchez. It was a good save in fairness to Sanchez, but from that position, Aaronsson really shouldn’t have given him a chance.

Poor First-Half

That was as good as it got for Leeds in the first-half; from then on it was all Chelsea. They quickly began to demonstrate that at least some of their sickeningly expensive players do actually have a decent amount of ability. They hit the post 5 minutes after Aaronson’s chance, and 2 minutes after that, they took the lead. Some poor Pascal Struijk defending allowed Chelsea to break away down their right side with Pedro Neto who crossed for Enzo Fernandez to score with his head.

It was a very tepid display from Leeds in the 1st half, and completely at odds with what we’ve seen in the league recently. 

Better Second-Half, Lack Of Cutting Edge

The second started more positively as Stach tested Sanchez’s wrist strength with a strong, rasping shot from the edge of the area. Sanchez has been much maligned this season for some of the howlers he’s conceded - two of which came against Leeds - but it was another good save on his part.

Leeds may have improved in the 2nd half, but they still lacked cutting edge; the only other real sight of goal came when Calvert-Lewin found himself free in the box, but he couldn’t get enough on the header to seriously challenge Sanchez, who was left with an easy catch.

From there the game began to fizzle out. Leeds attempted to build pressure, but Chelsea never looked uncomfortable at any stage. 

Disappointment.....Again

All in all it was another disappointing day out at Wembley for us Leeds fans. Another game where we’ve not turned up. It’s hard to put my finger on why that was exactly; possibly the occasion weighed heavily on the players? I thought playing in the cup would’ve been a freeing experience from the weekly grind of the Premier League. Evidently not. Some of the players looked to be playing within themselves - almost as if the handbrake was on. These occasions usually call for the players ‘to leave it all out on the pitch’ or some other similarly vague platitude. For whatever reason, this just didn’t happen for Leeds on Sunday.

Poor Timing

Only a week ago, everything looked tilted in our favour; Rosenior's weak, ineffectual soundbite management had left Chelsea in disarray on the pitch.

In contrast, Leeds were on a high after some excellent league results. Unfortunately for us, Chelsea called time on Rosenior's calamitous reign just in time to lift the players ahead of our joint visit to Wembley - and it showed. Timing and Leeds have never been easy bedfellows.

We Go Again

It’s back to Premier League duty for Leeds next weekend as we play Burnley at Elland Road. Securing a late draw at Bournemouth after back-to-back wins, our chances of relegation according to Opta were less than 1%. After everyone below us won at the weekend, this percentage inevitably rose to 1.28%. Of course, it’d be typical for Leeds to somehow manage to blow this, but even we should be able to get over the line from this position. West Ham and Spurs both await after Burnley. We need to dust ourselves off from Wembley and go again. One final push. There can be no excuses now.