Leeds United vs Bristol City. Sky Bet Championship.
Elland RoadAttendance34,333.
Leeds cruise past 10-man Bristol City in Sky Bet Championship victory.
Saturday 24 November 2018 18:26, UK
Leeds punished 10-man Bristol City as they returned to winning ways with a 2-0 triumph at Elland Road.
Kemar Roofe turned home a long-range Pablo Hernandez strike after 69 minutes to open the scoring. Hernandez then made the game safe four minutes from time, heading home Samuel Saiz's perfect cross.
After a dour first half, the game dramatically swung in United's favour when Josh Brownhill was red-carded for two bookable offences on 55 minutes, resulting in an onslaught of pressure from the home side.
Leeds' Kalvin Phillips shot wide from a central position after 11 minutes when City made a mess of playing the ball out.
The visitors enjoyed a little spell of pressure, with two long throws requiring good defending from the home side. Niki Maenpaa tipped Ezgjan Alioski's volley over the bar after 18 minutes after Adam Webster failed to clear his lines.
Stuart Dallas had a shot deflected through to the keeper four minutes later as Leeds stepped up the pressure.
Third-choice keeper William Huffer, making his Leeds debut, smothered a cross from Andreas Weimann along his six-yard box after 23 minutes.
Barry Douglas nodded a City free-kick behind for a corner before Hakeeb Adelakun's corner was headed wide by Tomas Kalas after 30 minutes.
Huffer saved comfortably from Lloyd Kelly's header minutes later as City continued to dominate and Jamie Paterson lobbed over after 37 minutes after Huffer made a mess of claiming Niclas Eliasson's free-kick.
And Eliasson nearly put the visitors ahead in the 47th minute when his shot deflected off Douglas and went over the bar with Huffer wrong-footed.
But the game swung in the home side's favour when Brownhill was red-carded after picking up his second booking on 55 minutes for bringing down Roofe.
Roofe, Alioski and Mateusz Klich all went close for Leeds and Maenpaa kept out Douglas' curling effort with a brilliant finger-tip save.
However, City finally cracked when Roofe turned in Hernandez's shot after 69 minutes to put Leeds ahead.
Hernandez wrapped it up with a well-placed header after he evaded his marker.
Marcelo Bielsa: "As far as I know I don't remember anything of note that they created. It was a very comfortable debut for our goalkeeper today.
"That we played with one player more made it easy for us. But that wasn't the only reason we won. We did not dominate the end of the first half or the start of the second half but we were dominant from that point on. I am pleased with the performance and the win today. I thought were were very good when we had the man advantage and really created plenty of chances."
Lee Johnson: "I thought they (Leeds) were lucky today. I thought they got away with it. We were the side who looked like going on to win the game until the red card.
"The referee took the easy decision in front of a big crowd. The referee wants to run the show these days. There were decisions that we didn't get but I don't care about the refs because they do it to us every week. We have had some poor refs the last few weeks."
