'Take responsibility': Leeds United fans on crucial Whites question, cash gripe and telling stat

Here is the YEP Jury’s take on the weekend’s reverse at Stamford Bridge including a Whites cash compliant and damning statistic.

ANDY RHODES

With Southampton getting a result here just two weeks ago, many Leeds fans will have hoped for a similar result on Saturday. Unfortunately, while Chelsea’s goal drought ended, United are very much struggling to find the net themselves. After the series of missed chances in midweek, Leeds couldn’t find the spark they needed at Stamford Bridge.

The Blues stayed strong and compact in defence and, while Leeds had chances to attack them, they couldn’t break them down and work any meaningful chances. While the Whites gave Chelsea a number of good chances to score, the home side couldn’t take advantage which meant Leeds were always in the game.

The defensive solidity which Javi Gracia is building is already looking clear. In the final weeks of the season United need a player to emerge from the crowd and take responsibility for digging them out of trouble but at the moment, there’s no indication as to who that player might be.

Man of the match: Illan Meslier.

KEITH INGHAM

After a decent start at the club Javi Gracia will definitely know how hard his job will be to keep the club from slipping out of the Premier League. The 1-0 defeat at Chelsea followed an unfortunate pattern, they were in the game but didn’t have the killer punch when ‘moments’ appeared.

Chelsea played some good football and were unlucky not to be ahead. Meslier made a fine save and they also hit the bar. Leeds grew into the game but didn’t trouble the Chelsea goal. In the second half Chelsea got the winning goal from a corner, Fofana powering a header past Meslier.

Leeds’ last effort – in injury time – came from a corner. Meslier’s header was easily saved by Kepa. The fact that United’s best chance fell to their own goalkeeper says volumes. Another game when the players in white didn’t give their travelling fans much for the money they paid to travel down to London to watch them.

Man of the match: Illan Meslier.

DAVID WATKINS

Another frustrating day for Leeds and their fans in London. Frustrating because, once again, we didn’t do an awful lot wrong.

Sure, we didn’t really create much in terms of real chances, but we withstood an early bombardment from the home side and then started to play our way into the game.

After riding our luck in those early minutes that saw Illan Meslier make a good stop, a Joao Felix shot rattle our crossbar and Ben Chilwell put a straightforward volley wide, it looked like we had steadied the ship only for a familiar failing to once again bite us early in the second half.

A left-wing Chelsea corner, a leap by Fofana who was weakly challenged by McKennie, and he planted his header firmly past Illan Meslier.

We lost our concentration for one brief moment and bang, we were a goal down.

So another point slipped from our grasp and all the effort was for nothing. We are running out of chances.

Men of the Match: Max Wober and Robin Koch.

MIKE GILL

The Whites defended well and soaked up a huge amount of pressure from the Blues. Illan Meslier looked as solid as a rock as he and his defence thwarted a succession of Chelsea attacks leaving them to head for the half-time break with rumbles of dissatisfaction coming from the home crowd.

On 53 minutes, Wesley Fofana rose high above the Leeds defence to head home a cross from Ben Chilwell which had resulted from a corner. Leeds had seven corners to Chelsea’s five and these were largely squandered – in fact the only one which produced a shot on target was Ilan Meslier’s diving header in the desperate dying moments.

Thereby hangs the problem. Leeds did not play badly or get hammered in fact they defended well but they did nothing at all to threaten the Chelsea goal. It's going to be a long hard fight to determine whether we stay in the Premier League or not.

Man of the match: Illan Meslier.

NEIL GREWER

Another disappointing result in a game where Leeds were second best but succumbed to a set-piece goal and could have got something out of the match with better quality in the final third. It was an expensively-assembled Chelsea team and the quality of Wesley Fofana (a replacement for the injured Thiago Silva) showed all over the pitch.

The team selection surprised me with a 4-2-3-1 lacking the steel I expected to be required in the ‘3’ of Summerville/Harrison/Aaronson

Generally the defence is shaping up and showing consistency and steel in personnel and performance with the back four settled at last and so called ‘big chances for the opposition’ being limited. It could have been so different had Meslier scored with a diving header following a corner in the last minute – but perhaps that sums up United’s attacking prowess at present.

Man of the match: Luke Ayling.