“Made my weekend”, “A revelation”: Some Leeds fans love teenager’s brilliant performance vs Derby + Match report

Leeds 2-0 Derby County: League leaders continue their march at the top

This clash in the EFL Championship had a lot of excitement in the build-up. Leeds United started the home game with Ezgjan Alioski surprisingly playing at left-back. Adam Forshaw commandeered the middle of the park while Mateusz Klich played as an attacking midfielder. Leeds’ top-scorer Kemar Roofe kept his usual place leading the line.

Frank Lampard’s Derby County side began with Jack Marriott as the central striker. Former Manchester United man Tom Lawrence played on the left flank while there were starting spots for Chelsea loanees Mason amount and Fikayo Tomori. Max Lowe, who recently returned from his loan spell at Aberdeen, started at left-back.

Within the opening few minutes of the game, there was a massive penalty appeal. Andre Wisdom brought a Leeds runner down in the box in what looked like a blatant foul. In a flash, the referee pointed to the spot only to be interrupted by the assistant’s offside call.

The breakthrough came in the 20th minute. A Leeds corner was punched away unconvincingly by Scott Carson and it fell to Jack Clarke on the flank.

With two quick touches, he was suddenly away from his man and he played in a low driven cross, which was met by the talisman Kemar Roofe who was the first to react. The ball thumped into the roof of the net and it was advantage, Leeds.

Derby slowly began losing control of the game with Leeds beginning to see more and more of the ball. This meant that by the half-hour mark, Leeds United were completely dictating the pace of the game with some slick passing and good all-round movement. The half time score at Elland Road was 1-0.

The second half began in amazing fashion. Leeds moved the ball forward with a wonderful passing move and an eventual Jack Clarke cross was met by a diving Alioski beyond the far post. His touch rolled the ball right across the post and an arriving Jack Harrison belted it in past a hapless Carson to make it 2-0 to the home side.

The rest of the second half went on in pretty much the same trend as the first half, with Leeds dominating the play. They had more than 60% possession, the majority of which was played in the Leeds half. While Derby did try to affect the game when they got possession, it was mostly quite ineffective.

They threw on David Nugent, Florian Jozefzoon and Martyn Waghorn to try and change the game but a toothless attack added to some terrible supply from the midfield saw Leeds United go 5 points clear at the top of the Championship. Second-placed Norwich City have a tricky away fixture at the Hawthorns tomorrow night.

Delighted with the result and the performance, here’s how some Leeds United fans reacted.