Match Recap: Crystal Palace 4-1 Leeds United

Leeds United suffered another 4-1 defeat this week, with Crystal Palace taking all three points at Selhurst Park.

Palace opened the scoring on 13 minutes from a corner kick which met the head of centre back Scott Dann. His towering leap had him first to the ball over Robin Koch and his powerful header flew in off the woodwork to give the Londoners an early lead.

The Whites pushed on and had the ball in the net soon after thanks to some nice play from Mateusz Klich from the right to find Patrick Bamford. He finished well, but VAR disallowed the goal for offside. You can make your own judgement on the rules and the accuracy of the decision/on-screen lines, but this is arguably a game changing moment.

Palace doubled their lead on 23 minutes as Eberche Eze scored a magical freekick from 20 yards out just left of centre. The goal may have been disheartening for Leeds who arguably had a goal unfairly chalked-off, but they kept fighting...

Klich and Bamford combined again and this time it counted as Klich headed the ball oer the top from the right corner of the box, Bamford chested it down before volleying the ball across goal and into the bottom corner to put Leeds back in the contest.

But the game got even more cruel for Leeds as Helder Costa raced back on the far side to block a cross from the left only to deflect the ball into his own net from a very tight angle, eight degrees to be pricise.

Leeds pushed and pushed in the second half but struggled to create an opening. Through a bit of luck and some magic from Eze they were able to sit back and be comfortable in defence, opening things up for their fourth goal which caitalised on poor defending as Jordan Ayew had been left free in the box. The ball was slipped through and the shot met the hand of Meslier, but it bounced off the inside of the post and went in anyway.

All in all, it perhaps would’ve been a different game had Bamford’s goal counted, with Palace more or less gifted the comfort of sitting back and allowing Leeds to punch themselves out as they struggled to create chances.

Injuries have clearly caused problems in the last couple games, coupled with poor moments and mistakes and some serious misfortune in this particular match.

However, there’s clearly a lot of work to be done over the international break and hopefully we’ll see Leeds back at their best when they host Arsenal on November 22nd.