The Whites head back to Elland Road this week with a 0-0 aggregate scoreline to capitalise on having played out a stalemate in the first leg against Norwich City.
Carrow Road played host to a largely dull affair as both sides seemingly looked content with a scoreless end result to take to Thursday.
Neither Illan Meslier nor Angus Gunn can say they had their work cut out to keep the game scoreless, but the Canaries stopper did see the ball in his net in the first half.
Junior Firpo’s driving run capitalise on an error from the Norwich backline to see him tap into an empty net, only for Georginio Rutter to be ruled offside in the buildup, applying pressure on the Norwich centre-back but not touching the ball.
Replays showed a decision either way was marginal and a tough call for the linesman to make.
Prior to that, Willy Gnonto’s frustration aimed at referee Josh Smith began with an early drive into the Norwich box, brought down by a clear foul from Borja Sainz – debatable whether it was in the box, but an obvious infringement from the Spaniard.
In the aftermath, it was clear that Leeds manager Daniel Farke was irate with two costly decisions that went against his side.
Per the Mirror, Farke had this to say on the matter.
Marcelo Bielsa never considered refereeing decisions in his post-match comments, and his stance made a lot of sense, knowing he’s just shouting into the void.
Referee mistakes are so commonplace that virtually every side will have received apology letters, and nothing comes of critiquing them other than a fine from the FA.
Farke has a real point here and in a game of such fine margins, these decisions have to be correct in order to come to a fair outcome.
We scored a seemingly onside goal, and should have had a penalty, in a game where chances weren’t forthcoming as the game wore on, which is hugely consequential.
However, you do have to look internally at our attacking setup and consider why we didn’t score or create any major chances outside of that Firpo disallowed goal, that’s not Josh Smith’s doing.
Leave a Reply