Leeds United 1 Huddersfield Town 4: YEP jury verdicts

JAMES HARRISON

The season is well and truly over now. There was a little bit of hope after winning three games on the bounce but Huddersfield have definitely ended it.

The second half was really poor, our defence was all over the place and we didn’t deserve to get anything from the game.

After the penalty decision in the first half we were brilliant. We controlled the game and thoroughly deserved our goal. Liam Bridcutt put a great ball in and Stuart Dallas rose high and placed a superb header past their goalkeeper.

To concede two goals from set-pieces is poor. We have defended poorly all season and this game showed that. All four goals were soft; the second half seemed like a training game to them. All our intensity went out of the game for some reason and the players lacked fight and hunger. The players have now realised that the season is over so now they’ve just got to give the fans something to shout about.

There isn’t any point bringing any loan signings in now. It is a good chance to ease some of the young players into the squad and give them some game time heading into next season.

Steve Evans should give Lee Erwin a run in the side. He hasn’t been great when he’s come off the bench but maybe a run of games starting will give him some confidence.

I’m really surprised he hasn’t spent the season on loan at another club to get him some quality game time.

Evans’ team selection was really strange.

To drop Lewis Cook was a poor call; he has been one of our best players all season and without him we don’t seem to click.

It was a risk that didn’t pay off but if it was to save him from injury then we can’t complain. Huddersfield looked really good going forward, their players around Nahki Wells are really tricky and caused us problems from the first minute.

Town manager David Wagner has definitely made them into a better side.

They could be really dangerous next season if he brings the players in he wants.

They have got a lot of goals in their side.

There weren’t many great performances but just for his goal alone, Stuart Dallas would be my man of the match.

Man of the match: Stuart Dallas.

KEITH INGHAM

This result in normal circumstances would probably mean the end for some coaches; it was that bad!

But this is Leeds, so expect the unexpected. Steve Evans, surprisingly, dropped Lewis Cook and Toumani Diagouraga to the bench. I’m not one for changing teams, especially winning ones. But Luke Murphy, who had a good game at Cardiff City in the middle of the three-game winning run and Stuart Dallas, who scored the opening goal, replaced them.

With the best crowd of the season inside Elland Road, it was to be hoped that it would encourage Leeds from the start but it was Huddersfield who had the chance to take the lead from the penalty spot. Marco Silvestri made an excellent save. The match ebbed and flowed with both teams having chances, but with half-time approaching, Huddersfield made the most of poor defending to equalise.

The ‘contest’ was ended by three goals in eight minutes in the second half that also gave Huddersfield their first win in the last five encounters.

Most home fans, myself included, were very annoyed at the manner of the hammering.

When he got it right I congratulated him but on Saturday Evans got it totally wrong and the blame for the defeat is his.

Man of the match: David Wagner, tactics spot on.

DAVID WATKINS

We went to Elland Road expectant that Leeds would show they had turned the metaphorical corner. Too often in the past Leeds had put together a little run of victories, attracted a big crowd into Elland Road and then collapsed like a pack of cards.

We had a let off when Silvestri brilliantly saved an early penalty and then Dallas finished superbly putting us ahead. But even a goal to the good, it didn’t look right. There was something about Leeds that began to generate fear and nerves among the home crowd and that was not helped when we tamely conceded a headed goal in our own area for the umpteenth time this season.

Three goals in eight minutes in the second half brought back memories of the fiasco at Brighton as our defence suddenly looked like tissue paper again and not the firmer stuff we displayed at Cardiff. This defeat merely reminds us that we don’t have a promotion winning side despite the team teasing us now and again to make us believe we do!

Man of the match: Giuseppe Bellusci.

GARY NEWBOULD

Only at Leeds United could the coach be tipped for the manager of the month award before the start of the game and the same coach be in fear of keeping his job 90 minutes later. Quite honestly the defensive ( and goalkeeping) organisation of The Whites on Saturday was modelled on the Keystone Cops. You would have to have been on another planet for the last two years not to realise that passing back to Marco Silvestri on a pudding of a pitch is asking for trouble.

The players may be on their holidays but the fans (almost thirty thousand of them) deserved a whole lot better.

Man of the match: Souleymane Doukara.

STEPHEN CLARK

The gloss of three straight wins for Leeds United was brutally wiped away by Huddersfield Town on Saturday afternoon, exposing the Whites as an outfit that lacks heart when the chips are down.

It is a sad indictment of how far Leeds have tumbled in recent years, that this game even has to be considered a rivalry, but unless there are radical changes at the helm of our club, then local derbies against Town are going to remain as our “big” fixture.

And whilst we claim that they mean nothing to us, in reality it’s defeats like this that hurt the most, as we all walk into work this morning with head bowed and wait for the ridicule to come.

Leeds never really turned up for the game, and were gifted a way into the game by Nakhi Wells’ missed penalty and Stuart Dallas’ floated header for the opening goal. At that moment Town were there for the taking, but Leeds simply did not step up a gear and continued to meander around with no real attacking intent.

Huddersfield were then gifted an equaliser before the break and despite a five-minute spell just after half-time when Leeds looked like they might break a sweat, the initiative was again relinquished and Town took control.

Like most of the crowd, the fourth Town goal was the signal for me to leave, an early start on the beer much more appealing than watching the club be humiliated once again. There is only so much more of this that we can take.

Man of the match: Liam Bridcutt.

MATTHEW EVANS

It was a familiar story at Elland Road on Saturday with a big and expectant crowd wholly disappointed as the team choked.

This wasn’t quite a capitulation on the same level as Brighton and the game was quite even for long spells. Nevertheless the speed with which United crumbled in the final stages of the game was alarming.

There were a few good performances and several bad (Murphy and Mowatt the pick) but Liam Bridcutt put in the performance you’d have liked to have seen from the rest. The end of the season can’t come too soon for us.

Man of the match: Liam Bridcutt.