Kalvin Phillips reveals dialogue with Kiko Casilla and says 'keeper has Leeds United's full support

Three days after being beaten at his near post by a Sammy Ameobi drive in Saturday's 2-0 loss at Nottingham Forest, Casilla failed to control a simple back pass that allowed Said Benrahma to tap home Brentford's opener in the 25th minute.

The gaffe came as second-placed United were dominating at Griffin Park and ultimately cost the Whites two points with skipper Liam Cooper's close-range finish from a corner seven minutes before the break only acting as an equaliser.

Phillips, though, said Leeds would stand firm behind Casilla as both a club and a squad with the midfielder impressed with the way the Spaniard regained his composure after his early blooper.

"It was a mistake but we don't get on his back about it," said Phillips.

"As a club, we are Leeds United and we need to get behind our players and that's what we did.

"As soon as he made the mistake we got behind him, we showed him confidence in the changing room at half-time, we said it doesn't matter, forget about it and hopefully he doesn't make many more like that."

Asked what went through his head as he saw Casilla's blunder lead to Brentford's opener, Phillips reasoned: "I don't know really because obviously we were on top and you just think 'oh no, not again.'

"But it's football, it happens and we got behind Kiko as soon as it happened.

"You could see from when we were playing out that he was confident after that so it was just one of them things that happens in football and hopefully he doesn't make many more.

"We spoke straight after the game and he said it literally bobbled straight over his foot and he couldn't do anything about it, he slipped.

"He changed his studs before the game so he can't really say anything other than that.

"We said 'listen, just forget about it now and focus on going on a good run.'"

Leeds looked to be staring at a fifth defeat defeat from their last six games after Casilla's howler but the Whites quickly regained their composure as part of a dominant display over the 90 minutes plus stoppage time.

The Whites squandered several good chances to bag a winner with the Whites having 13 attempts on goal with six on target and Brentford mustering just seven shots on goal and only two on target.

Phillips admitted he couldn't really fathom how United had failed to leave with all three points.

"I don't know to be fair," said Philips, asked how Leeds had not won the game.

"We were very unlucky with the first goal, if there was anybody you didn't want to make a mistake it was Kiko and I thought after that he showed more confidence when he was given the ball because that's the way we play out.

"He looked very confident on it so we just stuck together after the first goal and we get our goal from a corner which is about time really.

"But I thought we were excellent. We were very surprised with the way Brentford played, just kicking it long quite a lot.

"I think they felt a little bit threatened by our press, it's happened to many teams and I thought overall we dominated the game."

The draw kept United second but Leeds will drop out of the automatic promotion spots for the first time since November if third-placed Fulham win at Millwall on Wednesday night.

The Cottagers are one point behind with a game in hand with Leeds staying two points ahead of fourth-placed Brentford.

Fifth-placed Nottingham Forest have fallen two points adrift after Tuesday night's 1-0 loss at home to Charlton Athletic.