After the free-flowing attacking football we saw in the first two games of the season, you can see why yesterday’s scoreless draw against Preston North End was somewhat of a disappointment.

The disappointment highlights further how the expectation has now changed at the club, and how nothing but a convincing win at home will do.

The game was a typical Championship fixture, a slugfest which lacked any real quality throughout. However, Thomas Christiansen and the whole squad would have learnt a lot more from the game than the previous two fixtures.

There were various talking points we could take from the game, but here are the three big talking points:

Creative players faulted

After the performances over the last week, I was confident that the creative players would be able to break down the Preston defence. However, they were not at the races yesterday afternoon and did not settle until the sending off.

Alex Neil and Preston deserve credit: their aggressive pressing of the Leeds players meant Leeds did not have time on the ball and could not find any rhythm. Leeds never got a chance to play the free-flowing football that Christiansen would prefer.

The players are going to have to adapt to beat teams who come to Elland Road happy to impose a physical approach and are happy to play out the game for a point. Teams coming to Elland Road will look at yesterday’s game as the blueprint to suppress Leeds’ creativity, and the players will need to change their style to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

Core players integral again

The main reason we did not lose the game was once again because of the efforts of a core set of players which will be so important as we go forward this season. Luke Ayling, Liam Cooper and Eunan O’Kane were, in my opinion, the saving graces of the game.

I never run out of positives to say about Luke Ayling: the precision of his tackling in the first half was top class. It felt like everything went through him and he was the driving force in the game.

Cooper’s permanent involvement in the squad has been a topic for some time but, so far this season, Cooper has shown why he is the captain of the team. When Preston did venture forward they were met by Cooper who - cool as you like - just dealt with it and cleared the ball. I think what impressed me the most about Cooper’s performance was his ability to defend when facing his own goal. Defenders often struggle when they are forced to turn and chase the ball played in behind, but Cooper showed so much presence and confidence that I knew Preston were not going to score.

The midfield battle was key yesterday, and without O’Kane’s savvy performance we would have lost the midfield and probably lost the game. O’Kane has brilliant depth in his game; he has the ability to break up the play in the middle of the park, but he also finds players and is the epicentre for those attacking moments that lift the stadium.

One point gained rather than two points lost

Like I mentioned earlier, the positive changes at the club have changed our expectations. However, we need to remember Preston finished in 11th last season in the Championship and were in contention for the playoffs during last season.

Every game of the Championship is difficult and every team will have off days. Leeds had an off day yesterday and were unable to get a handle on the game… in previous seasons we would have lost that sort of game.

We are still undefeated and are playing some forwarding thinking football, the game yesterday might be the learning curve that the team needs to improve and push forward.

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