Leeds United’s disastrous home form in the Premier League continued on Monday evening as they were dealt one hell of a beating by Leicester City.
The Whites succumbed to a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the Foxes, who played the perfect counter-attacking display at Elland Road.
Versatile utility man Stuart Dallas scored their only goal of the game in the 48th minute but it was costly error after costly error which was their ultimate downfall.
Robin Koch slipped in just the second minute to let Jamie Vardy tee up Harvey Barnes for an early opener before scoring himself in between a brace from Youri Tielemans.
The Belgian rounded off the victory with a last-minute penalty, which was conceded by Polish midfielder Mateusz Klich, who was playing in what would usually be Kalvin Phillips’ position.
It’s fair to suggest that it’s not the role for him as aside from the error, the 30-year-old lost possession 16 times from 110 touches, won just 33% of six duels, committed two fouls and was dribbled past twice too, via SofaScore.
Uncharacteristically, Klich was a mere passenger in this tie – the €15m-rated (£13.5m) maestro also failed to record a single key pass, successful dribble and just one accurate cross.
Considering he’s had notched ten key passes and two assists in their last five outings, per WhoScored, he was underwhelming and certainly not at his best.
Beren Cross at LeedsLive graded the Elland Road favourite a meagre 5/10 and claimed: “The pressure was on in the first half there was no protection for the defenders. Klich was out of position plenty and there were costly errors thrown in too.”
Klich is sat on £45k-per-week, which is among the high-earners in Yorkshire. On Monday night, he badly let his manager, Marcelo Bielsa down, especially considering he’s one of the first names on the team sheet – he played all but one league game last term.
Perhaps some of the blame can be attributed to the unfamiliar role he was deployed in, though still, it simply wasn’t good enough.
AND in other news, Bielsa must give OUTCAST the Jean-Kevin Augustin treatment…
