In Leeds We Trust: Debuts amid the Crawley chaos, as thoughts turn to former captain Sol Bamba

An FA Cup tie against lower league opposition. As a Leeds fan, you sort of already knew what was going to happen.

Crawley Town can now be filed alongside Newport, Sutton United, and Histon in the ever expanding list of embarrassing Leeds United FA Cup exits.

We’ve been here before, many times, although having to watch a reality TV star come on for a cameo in additional time was a bizarre new twist in a tale we know well by now. It also shouldn’t be forgotten that amongst the chaos a couple of debuts into professional football were made, as Jack Jenkins and Sam Greenwood came on as substitutes.

Having to come on as substitutes and find their place in a formation which became difficult to decipher even by Bielsa’s standards was far from an easy way to make your first foray into senior football but both Jenkins and Greenwood put in creditable performances in a difficult environment where none of the rotated squad covered themselves in glory.

Rotation for cup games has become the norm for teams at the top end of the English football pyramid, but with the benefit of a week’s rest before and after the game perhaps we could have afforded to show the competition more respect on this occasion. Crawley’s performance in the game has to be credited, defensively they gave very little away and ultimately made the most of the chances that came to them. But as always football moves on quickly, and Brighton present us with a chance to set things back on track.

After the transfer saga at the beginning of the season it will be a pleasure to see Ben White make his return to Elland Road, while we would have preferred to see him in a white shirt this season he will no doubt still be welcomed warmly by Kalvin Phillips and the rest of the squad.

The Seagulls held firm over White’s fee in the summer as they didn’t want to sell him to a rival relegation candidate, as we near the halfway point of the season however, it seems that they needn’t have been so worried as that rivalry doesn’t appear to be as close as they suspected.

Brighton find themselves hovering just above the relegation places while at Leeds we enjoy the relative comfort of 12th place.

That being said, we know just how easily that gap can slip away and will hope to further secure our position with three points today.

Finally, this week we also received the sad news of former Leeds United captain Sol Bamba’s diagnosis with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.

As he begins his battle with the disease, all of us at the Trust join the rest of the football world in wishing Sol and his family all the best at this difficult time.

Adding your own voice to the Trust’s work is easy.

Visit our new website at www.lufctrust.com and you can become a member for just £10 per year.

Marching on together.