QPR 1 Leeds United 0 - Phil Hay's verdict: Pressure on Whites after Rs put cat amongst the pigeons

Leeds are living with extreme heat around them in the Championship and at a stage of the season where every fixture, in Bielsa’s words, carries “heavy consequences” they were invited to shift the pressure elsewhere against Queens Park Rangers.

A game in hand away at Loftus Road yesterday was their chance to reclaim the lead in the Championship but they let it slip to a 49th-minute goal from Luke Freeman. And so, immediately, to the topic of consequences.

Freeman’s clever flick, the one moment of class in the entire game, turned on its head a contest which Leeds had controlled with graft, perseverance but no exacting quality.

Bielsa is accustomed to needing patience and however it ends, this will not go down as a season when Leeds went to town on their division.

A patient first half was in keeping with the way Bielsa’s squad have been negotiating most of it, with the same process and same performances that got them this far, but they were clutching at straws after Freeman, the playmaker QPR so often rely on, made the difference and made his presence tell.

Bielsa, having embraced the Championship for the first time in his life, could not have asked for much more than what a victory would have given him: top by a point with 12 games left.

Instead, he is left to ponder Friday’s visit of West Bromwich Albion to Elland Road, a match Leeds dare not lose. QPR’s stewards spent time chasing a cat out of Loftus Road before kick-off. It will be amongst the pigeons if Leeds take another shot to the ribs from West Brom.

The weather in London was there to fool everyone into thinking that the season was almost done, temperatures more suited to the final day, but the run to the finishing line is still too long for Leeds to start looking at the line itself.

Garry Monk’s side needed only three weeks to burn a glaring play-off chance two years ago and the league is primed for more changes of position yet. QPR were desperate for a victory but the real winners at full-time were the teams around United, all of whom sat at home with their feet up.

It was, in theory, the best time play Rangers just as the bottom dropped out of their season. “Horrible” was how Steve McClaren described their form and horrible was about right: seven league defeats on the spin and no win in the Championship since Boxing Day, allowing the division’s stragglers to creep up behind them.

The game, though, coincided with Freeman’s return from a hip injury, a shot in the arm for a side who have been losing the plot in some style.

QPR were sniffing around the play-offs at Christmas but have nothing more to do this season than avoid being relegated. There was no evidence of shattered confidence amongst McClaren’s players; merely a flimsy defence and the frustration of players who know a healthy finishing position is long gone.

The table is such that Leeds will play plenty of matches like this during the run-in: meetings with clubs in the bottom half interspersed with do-or-die extravaganzas against West Bromwich Albion and Sheffield United.

The significance of last night’s contest - the knowledge that Leeds, in the context of controlling a top-two finish, had to win it - did not translate into undue urgency or impulsive football until Freeman struck.

Bielsa’s players took time to work QPR out, examining them methodically, but having dictated the first half they contrived to concede at the very start of the second.

Before Freeman’s goal, Joe Lumley had been served with warnings of a potentially busy evening ahead. Kalvin Phillips drew a fingertip save with a glancing header at the near post and Lumley got behind a curling shot from Tyler Roberts to bring it safely down.

There was nothing he could do in the 33rd minute when Pablo Hernandez caressed a cross through the six-yard box but the ball beat Patrick Bamford’s left boot and trickled wide. A break in the deadlock felt that close, and only at one end of the pitch.

QPR were brought out of their shell before half-time by Liam Cooper leaving the pitch for treatment on a cut around his eye which left him looking like Lee Selby at the hands of Josh Warrington but McClaren’s side looked there for the taking.

Then, three minutes after half-time, Freeman weaved some of the magic QPR had been missing.

Massimo Luongo teed him up, running clear of Phillips and crossing before Cooper could block the ball, and a slick flick of Freeman’s heel carried it into the net. Luke Ayling’s attempt to hack the finish off the line was a despairing swing of his leg.

Before long, Leeds were hanging on.

Nahki Wells wasted a free header presented by Jake Bidwell’s delivery, nodding it weakly into Kiko Casilla’s arms, and Casilla reacted quickly to charge out and block Wells’ goalbound strike after Freeman danced past a couple of tackles.

It was Freeman’s invention that Leeds lacked but Bielsa waited until the final 10 minutes to reach for Izzy Brown from the bench, a debut for the midfielder at last. His only impact was to earn an immediate booking.

Two good chances presented themselves late on, a free hit which Pablo Hernandez created and Douglas smashed over from an angle and a shot from Dallas which Lumley blocked, presenting Patrick Bamford with a header.

The goalkeeper blocked it brilliantly with his left leg and saw a second rebound land in his grasp.

At that moment it felt like QPR’s night and there was nothing to avert a quiet, reflective coach journey home for a group of players who have regrouped before and need to do so again, in haste.