Match Recap: Leeds United put away a Yorkshire rival as they win 2-1 over Barnsley

Leeds United went out and got all three points today against a Barnsley team that will need a miracle to stay up this season after winning the match 2-1. While the match wasn’t brilliant for Leeds, the young players provided a spark for Leeds, as Bailey Peacock-Farrell made a number of brilliant saves and Tom Pearce scored his first goal for the first team.

The match started out sort of slow for both teams, with Barnsley FC playing back while Leeds couldn’t do a whole lot with the ball.

Tom Pearce broke the deadlock in the 18th minute with a brilliant individual effort on goal.

Pearce opened his Leeds first-team account with a goal that broke the 0-0 deadlock. After the goal, however, Leeds ceded most of the possession to Barnsley, allowing their South Yorkshire rivals to spend time on the ball.

Leeds were made to pay for dithering on the ball and allowing Barnsley to get back into the game. Matthew Pennington and Gjanni Alioski did an extremely poor job of clearing the ball out of the Leeds defensive third, and Ezekiel Fryers did a good job to get clear while both Pennington and Alioski let him run free. Fryer’s cross didn’t find any Barnsley players, but it did find both Pontus Jansson and Paudie O’Connor, and the ball bounced off of O’Connor and into the back of the net.

Bailey Peacock-Farrell saved a goal in stoppage time after Barnsley’s Connor Mahoney blew by some Leeds defenders and put a brilliant shot on net. Only the goal-keeping heroics of the young Leeds keeper kept the ball out of the back of the net and a lead for Barnsley.

As the teams went into half-time, you’d be hard pressed to determine that Barnsley, not Leeds, were the team that was in trouble of relegation with just how poor the play of Leeds was in the first half.

Kemar Roofe did well to generate the second Leeds goal after beating his man down the left-hand channel and was allowed to run free along the touchline. Roofe put a ball on the floor across the face of goal, and Alioski was able to beat his marker to the ball and put it in the back of the net.

Leeds were spared when Oliver McBurnie’s goal for Barnsley were ruled off for offsides. Otherwise, Leeds did well to retain possession and get a few more chances to put the game away with a third goal.

Leeds were spared after Moore somehow missed a shot less than a yard in front of the goal that dribbled out for a corner kick. Barnsley weren’t able to get anything out of the corner kick. Hammill had a free kick for Barnsley in a good position, but the worked routine came to naught as again Moore was unable to even get his foot to the ball.

Forshaw came on near the end of the match replacing Samu Saiz, who had hasn’t been as effective as he was during the beginning part of the season, and the rest of the match was fairly quiet as Leeds saw the match out to win only the third match of 2018.

MOT