Leeds United 1 - 1 Merseyside Reds

Leeds: Llorente 87’
Reds: Mané 31’

Pre-Match

Today was a bad day for football. The decision, taken by billionaires who just want to squeeze a few more pennies out of the working class, has turned what should be a potentially season-defining showdown into a meaningless affair.

Champions League qualification should be on cards, but whether banned from Europe by UEFA or off to get a payday in the European Super League, today probably won’t matter.

I still support the players and the manager. They did nothing wrong in all of this, and will probably suffer the brunt of the punishment. Fuck this sucks.

First Half

Liverpool start the match like some pricks from Yorkshire wore shirts in warm-up intimating that they didn’t deserve Champions League football. Which of course, they did. And if Liverpool needed motivation with the football world in meltdown, they seemed to have been gifted it by Leeds’ pregame shenanigans.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but after a pretty dominant opening half an hour, the game has devolved into a bit of a scoreless stalemate. And just as I write this, Liverpool flip the script and score a damned first half goal.

GOAL! And wow, it’s a phenomenal one! Diogo Jota picks out a Trent Alexander-Arnold’s run into the box with an incredible pass from deep on the left wing. Trent passes first time, taking the keeper completely out of the equation, right into the feet of Sadio Mané, who scores on an open net.

Liverpool end the half on top, having put in a really solid opening 45 minutes.

Second Half

Leeds start the second half on the front foot, but Liverpool’s defense holds. Around the hour mark, Trent nearly gives the VAR officials a reason to give a penalty with a ball-to-hand incident in the box. A moment later Leeds create a great chance from a corner, but it looked as if it would’ve been offside.

Klopp makes his first sub on seventy minutes, bringing on Mohamed Salah for Sadio Mané. Not a bad sub to bring off the bench.

Things have really opened up in the last few minutes. Both sides spurn chances, including a Leeds effort that goes off the woodwork.

With ten minutes to go, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain comes on for Diogo Jota.

Goal. Leeds score from a corner. Goodnight.

Final Thoughts

It was a tale of two halves, and a draw is probably the fair result. I’d say that hurts our Champions League hopes, but who knows what the fall out of this European Super League shit will be?