Match Recap: Leeds United get fair result in 1-1 draw with Aston Villa

Leeds United drew 1-1 at home to Aston Villa after scoring an early goal from Pontus Jansson. Henri Lansbury’s 71st minute goal was enough for Aston Villa to share the spoils with the hosts, and while it’s not a win, a draw is certainly a decent result for a Leeds team that has seen far too many matches thrown away in the final few minutes by surrendering a late goal.

Leeds United started the game brightly, putting pressure on Aston Villa from the very beginning. Villa seemed a little out of sorts in the early part of the match, and Leeds looked like the team that beat Middlesbrough and Barnsley FC rather than the team of October that got stomped at home against Reading FC and lost to both Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United.

Leeds broke through in the 20th minute as Pontus Jansson scored his first goal of the season from a Pablo Hernandez corner kick. Jansson simply muscled Christopher Samba out of the way to get to the ball before any of the Villa players and all Jansson had to do was nod the ball into the back of the net.

Leeds continued to dominate the rest of the first half, but Pablo Hernandez had to exit the match after appearing to injure his leg and was unable to continue, making way for Kemar Roofe to come on to the pitch right before half-time.

Leeds didn’t look nearly as good during the second half, and the depth of the Villa squad shone through as Jack Grealish and Henri Lansbury were subbed on. Lansbury made an almost instant impact, with the midfielder scoring his first goal for Aston Villa in the 71st minute.

Hadi Sacko was brought on for Caleb Ekuban in the 83rd minute as Leeds looked to attempt to bring in a bit of pace to disrupt the relatively slow Villa backline.

Leeds looked a tad disjointed in the second half, and it has to be said that the goal that brought the two teams level was coming. The other big takeaway from the second half is that despite the quality in the Leeds first team, that the club isn’t nearly as deep as it should be with all of the transfers into the first team this summer. And again, Jay-Roy Grot got his few minutes of fun running around, as his first action on the day was to mistime his jump for the ball and to go tumbling on the ground as the Villa players around him simply watched him unable to get the ball.

And while this match, in parts at least, felt a little like the Derby County match where Leeds gave up a goal and crumbled a bit in the second half, the team still came through and did enough to stop the rot and was able to hang on to a draw. It wasn’t the best performance by Leeds, but they didn’t lose the match, and after watching Leeds concede a number of late goals to drop points, even though Leeds weren’t able to get all three points, hanging on to a point here is still a decent result for the Whites. Leeds will look to grab all three points next weekend as they travel to West London to take on Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road.