Leeds Player Ratings: Leeds 1 - 1 Nottingham Forest

Leeds United were held to a frustrating 1-1 draw with Nottingham Forest at Elland Road. Leeds dominated the game but weren’t able to turn their dominance into enough clear-cut chances. A goal from Pablo Hernandez gave Leeds the lead but a scrappy equaliser from Lewis Grabban was enough to get the visitors a point.

Leeds will have felt they were on the rough end of the decisions in the game. In the build up to Forest’s goal there was a clear foul on Liam Cooper, but this is cancelled out by Patrick Bamford appearing to be offside in the build up to Leeds goal. Leeds had 4 penalty appeals in the game as well, the strongest of which was for a blatant foul on Stuart Dallas where he was simply hoofed in the back of the leg. However, we all know Marcelo Bielsa would not want us focusing on a referee so...

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

Kiko Casilla - Nothing to do really. Poor defending on the corner for the goal has to go against all the defenders and the goalkeeper, although he couldn’t do much about the scramble itself. Distribution was good. 6/10

Stuart Dallas - Did a good job getting up and down the right hand side, not spectacular as he was usually looking to get the ball into Pablo Hernandez with simple passes. One mistake as he misplaced a pass across the Leeds penalty area but he was rescued by Barry Douglas. Fouled for what should have been a blatant penalty at 1-1. 6.5/10

Ben White - Very impressive once again from the Brighton and Hove Albion loanee. Excellent in possession and never looked in danger when it came to his defensive work. Played one stupendous pass to get Patrick Bamford in down the right channel. Not as strong a performance as we saw against Bristol City but one of Leeds best players on the day. 7.5/10

Liam Cooper - Similar type of performance to Ben White but slightly below White’s level. Cooper gets slightly more criticism than White over Leeds looking vulnerable at corners. As senior defender and captain he has to be on top of that. 7/10

Barry Douglas - Didn’t get caught up the pitch as much in this match and defended well against a talented opponent in Joe Lolley. Broke in the box with a great nutmeg but his shot was blocked very well. Had one mad 30 seconds where he lost the ball in a dangerous area, was rescued by a teammate, and lost it again immediately. Some good deliveries from set-pieces but they came to nothing. 6.5/10

Kalvin Phillips - Performance dropped a little after he was booked for a rash challenge - I have seen refs give red cards for less, this limited his effectiveness despite still putting in a decent performance. Passed the ball well and tackled well for the most part. Forced Aro Muric (who looked very dodgy) into a save from distance. 6.5/10

Adam Forshaw - Made several excellent challenges and passed the ball well - but without quite the incisiveness we saw last weekend. Got forward well to fill the space left by Bamford when he pulled wide but didn’t look all that dangerous when he did. Haven’t seen a replay but had a penalty shout in the first half where he “went down extravagantly”, if this was a dive consider this .5 lower. 7.5/10

Mateusz Klich - Really good pass to get the assist on the Leeds goal. His movement to push wide and create the overload was missed once he went off and was one of the reasons Leeds struggled to create chances at 1-1. However, he wasn’t at his best for long periods of the match and he gave the ball away a bit more than you would like to see from him. 6.5/10

Pablo Hernandez - Another excellent goal from the former Spain international. Outside of that he wasn’t near his best but still produced enough moments of quality to stand out - a couple of nutmegs in an interchange with Stuart Dallas down the right being one of them. 7/10

Jack Harrison - Some similarities to last season for Harrison in that he worked hard and got into good positions before not getting the final ball right on too many occasions. Misplaced a few passes. It is harsh after a good pre-season and opening day but I would expect to see the calls for Helder Costa to increase. 6.5/10

Patrick Bamford - Worked hard, ran the channels well, and battled away against the Forest defence. Hit the crossbar with a volley that he didn’t quite catch and put a lofted shot wide when under little pressure and with the keeper in no man’s land. Played fine but should have got on the scoresheet. 6.5/10

SUBSTITUTES

Ezgjan Alioski (for Harrison, 72mins) - Less effective than Harrison but also had less time to get into the match. 6/10

Helder Costa (for Klich, 80mins) - Ran at defenders and they looked scared by his pace and trickery. Pushed in the back for the second strongest of the Leeds penalty shouts. Looked dangerous. 6.5/10