Leeds Player Ratings - Leeds 1 - 2 Birmingham City

A poor Leeds United performance, in the first half particularly, resulted in a 2-1 defeat to Birmingham City at Elland Road.

Leeds started very sloppily to end up 2-0 down in the first half and despite having a lot of possession, Leeds never looked like they would come away with something from the game.

Time now to look at each player and how they performed. As always you can tell me how wrong I am @mightywhitespod or @ThruItAllLUFC on twitter.

STARTING LINE-UP

Bailey Peacock-Farrell - The unfortunate thing for goalkeepers is that when they have a bad game it is usually costly. Really poor on the first goal. BPF gambled that the ball would go to the other side of him and then couldn’t sort his feet out to dive the other way. Che Adams’ effort for his first goal wasn’t particularly well struck or anywhere near the corner and should have been a simple save, even if he was a little unsighted. For Adams’ second goal the strike was right in the corner, but it had no pace on it and it looked like he should have done better with that one as well. No need to panic but he will know he has had a bad day on this occasion. 4/10

Luke Ayling - Too many sloppy passes (true of many) and wasn’t able to contribute to his normal levels either defensively or in attack. 5/10

Pontus Jansson - Leeds centre-backs may have been Leeds best two players. Jansson wasn’t at the imperious level we saw against Preston but he won the ball in the air over and over again and was tidy in possession. Didn’t win the ball from Adams in build to second goal but forced him into a weak shot that I feel should have been saved. 7/10

Liam Cooper - Similar level of performance to his centre-back partner. Less dominant in the air than Jansson. Says a lot for Leeds’ performance that Jansson and Cooper seemed to have double the number of passes of everybody else. 7/10

Barry Douglas - A couple of decent deliveries but was too sloppy in possession. Didn’t get tight enough when defending. 5/10

Kalvin Phillips - We have said on the podcast a few times - one of the problems with Phillips is that when he has a poor game, he has a really poor game. Much like against Swansea City, Phillips was hooked during the first half having played some really sloppy stuff and was poor on the goals. Having a good season but not at the races today. 4/10

Mateusz Klich - Could have been taken off himself but was marginally better than Phillips. Couldn’t find his passing range and didn’t assert himself on the game. Did improve after the 35min mark. 5/10

Jack Harrison - Most of the good things we saw on Tuesday from him were absent today. Not awful but was very quiet and made very little impact. 5/10

Ezgjan Alioski - Was on a lower mark in my mind until his goal gave Leeds hope. Got into a fair number of good positions with the ball but was very wasteful. However, his goal was a good first touch and a good finish across the goalkeeper. 5.5/10

Samu Saiz - Birmingham did a bit of a job on Saiz who got more and more frustrated as the game went on. When Leeds play poorly and Pablo Hernandez is out everything falls to Saiz so it is really obvious when he isn’t having a good day. A couple of moments of quality still found their way through and his lofted pass to set up Alioski’s goal was very good. 6/10

Tyler Roberts - Held the ball up well and put in plenty of effort. Didn’t get much service. Moved wide and didn’t manage much to be honest. Michael Morrison and Harlee Dean did well against him. 6/10

SUBSTITUTES

Stuart Dallas (For Phillips, 34mins) - Worked hard and got Leeds up the pitch whenever he could. Nearly nicked Leeds a point with a low left foot shot just before full time which was saved excellently by Lee Camp. 6.5/10

Adam Forshaw (For Klich, 62mins) - Similar to Klich in terms of passing, provided a little bit more threat than the Poland international. 6/10

Ryan Edmondson (For Douglas, 71mins) - The effort was there but he was never really involved in the game. 5/10