The Times - UK (2022-05-23)

8 1GG Monday May 23 2022 | the times

thegame

1

Canós 78

RATINGS

Brentford (4-3-3): D Raya 5 — K Ajer 6,

P Jansson 6, M Sorensen 5 (S Baptiste 71min),

R Henry 6 (S Canós 63, 6) — M Jensen 5

(J Dasilva 68, 5), V Janelt 5, C Eriksen 6 —

B Mbeumo 5, I Toney 5, Y Wissa 6. Booked Raya,

Toney, Canós. Sent off Canós.

Leeds United (4-2-3-1): I Meslier 6 — R Koch 6,

D Llorente 5, L Cooper 5, J Firpo 5 —

S Greenwood 6 (R Klich 85), K Phillips 7

— Raphinha 8, Rodrigo 6, J Harrison 7 —

J Gelhardt 7 (P Struijk 71, 5). Booked Phillips.

Referee P Tierney.

Brentford Leeds United

2

Raphinha 56 (pen)

Harrison 90+4

Leicester City

Maddison 49, Vardy 74, Pérez 81, 90+6^4

RATINGS

Leicester City (4-1-2-3): K Schmeichel 7 —

T Castagne 6 (R Pereira 70min, 7), W Fofana 6,

J Evans 7, J Justin 6 — N Mendy 6 —

K Dewsbury-Hall 7 (A Pérez 63, 6), Y Tielemans 6 —

J Maddison 8 (D Amartey 82), J Vardy 8,

H Barnes 7 (A Lookman 77).

Southampton (4-4-2): A McCarthy 6 —

K Walker-Peters 5, Lyanco 4, J Stephens 5, M Salisu

5 — S Armstrong 6, J Ward-Prowse 7, O Romeu 6

(W Smallbone 90+3), M Elyounoussi 7 (M Djenepo

72) — N Redmond 5 (S Long 83), A Armstrong 6

(C Adams 63, 5). Booked Romeu.

Referee J Moss.

Attendance 32,003.

Southampton

Ward-Prowse 79 (pen)^1

Rodgers: Maddison has forced way into England reckoning

came about. Jon Moss, the referee

in his final game before

retirement, mistakenly handed

the ball to Wes Fofana instead of

a Southampton player after they

had been in possession when

Jamie Vardy went down injured

and play was stopped.

Fofana passed it to Kasper

Schmeichel, the Leicester

goalkeeper, who kicked it long

with Lyanco twice making a

mess of trying to head it clear,

allowing Vardy a shot at goal.

His effort was saved by Alex

McCarthy but the ball fell for

Maddison to tap home.

“There was a lack of clarity

of what happened — was it a

bounce-ball or a free kick for

us, or whatever?” Rodgers said.

“I was watching it as it

developed and I asked the

fourth official. The ball

was played back to

Kasper and he played it

forward. If their centre half

didn’t make a mistake,

there’s no drama.”

Asked if his players

should have allowed

Southampton to

equalise, Rodgers said: “I called

some of the players over to ask

what Moss was saying and he

said it was a goal and a fair goal. I

thought there was a bit of

confusion. But we scored and went

on and scored another three.”

Ralph Hasenhüttl, the

Southampton manager said:

“When you have the ball and the

referee stops the game, you have

the ball back, but today it was

different. We have to accept it

but it was hard to understand.

“The offer I made of ‘let us

score a goal after the kick-off’ wasn’t

taken — they pressed us immediately

again, so the situation was gone and

the game was different.”

Vardy made it 2-0 with a superb

effort 16 minutes from time. Harvey

Barnes put him through in the inside-

left channel and the striker ran

through before cutting inside Lyanco

before slotting past McCarthy.

James Ward-Prowse pulled one

back from the penalty spot in the

79th minute after Stuart Armstrong

appeared to dive over Youri

Tielemans’s leg to win it. But Leicester

restored their two-goal lead two

minutes later.

Maddison picked out Ayoze Pérez,

who was unmarked beyond the far

post for an angled volley that gave

McCarthy no chance. Pérez grabbed

his second in injury time, when he

rifled high into the net from seven

yards after Ricardo Pereira pulled the

ball back.

TIM NASH

The Leicester City manager, Brendan
Rodgers, has said that James
Maddison has done all he can to win
a place in the England squad.
The 25-year-old midfielder, who
was voted Leicester’s player of the
season, scored one goal and set up
another to make it 18 goals and 12
assists in all competitions this season.
Gareth Southgate names his squad
tomorrow for next month’s four
Nations League games, two against
Hungary and one apiece versus Italy
and Germany. However, the England
manager has been reluctant to give
Maddison game-time ever since the
player was pictured in a casino a
night after he was declared ill.
“He’s been absolutely brilliant,”
Rodgers said. “He’s been up there, he’s
hungry, and since that difficult start,
like a lot of the players, he’s really

developed. You see his running, his

power, his quality, and he scored one

and created another with a great ball,

so he can’t do any more.”

Rodgers was less effusive about the

way Maddison’s 49th-minute goal

Vardy celebrates after scoring

Leicester City’s second goal

Confidence in the majority owner,

Andrea Radrizzani — who joined the

celebrations on the pitch — has

evaporated. The same is true of Victor

Orta, Leeds’s director of football,

whose recruitment decisions left an

injury-hit, wafer-thin squad

floundering.

When the final whistle blew on an
afternoon freighted with tension, a
battle for Premier League survival
that hung in the balance until deep
into stoppage time, it was Leeds
United who came up gasping for air.
Their 2-1 victory over Brentford,
courtesy of a 94th minute strike from
Jack Harrison, coupled with Burnley’s
2-1 defeat by Newcastle United, was
enough for them to dramatically
retain their Premier League status on
the final day.
The Leeds manager, Jesse Marsch,
and his players and staff spilled on to
the pitch and celebrated wildly before
a rapturous travelling support in a
one corner of the Brentford
Community Stadium.
“I believed we could do this,”
Marsch said. “There wasn’t one day I
didn’t believe. I believed in the group
of players we had: their resolve; their
spirit; their character. And that’s what
earned us what we deserved.”
Leeds’s task before kick-off was
clear: better Burnley’s result against

Leeds take stock

after winning the

fight for survival

Newcastle and they would survive,

but they could not better a Burnley

win. Harrison’s deflected strike in

stoppage time arrived when Burnley

trailed 2-1 at Turf Moor. When

Raphinha’s penalty was cancelled out

by Sergi Canós with 12 minutes to

play, however, Burnley were still only

one goal away from safety.

They had Joe Gelhardt’s first-half

effort ruled offside by VAR just as

Newcastle took the lead. Then a

second-half error by David Raya,

Brentford’s goalkeeper, gifted

Raphinha the chance to swing the

battle for survival in their favour from

the spot. The Brazilian made no

mistake and gave Leeds reason to

believe in an unlikely escape.

When Burnley pulled a goal back

with 20 minutes to play at Turf Moor,

and Canós levelled on 78 minutes, the

temperature in west London spiked.

Canós was booked for his celebrations

and two minutes later the Spaniard

received a second yellow card for a

foul on Raphinha. When Kristoffer

Ajer went off injured, after Brentford

had used all three substitutes, the

hosts were reduced to nine men for

the final ten minutes.

Much had been made of the needle

between these two clubs, owing to

their battles as promotion rivals in the

Sky Bet Championship, yet Brentford,

who could have finished as high as

ninth place with three points, were

blunt in attack and Leeds deserved

their momentous win.

Patrick Bamford had been expected

to play, having recovered from a foot

injury suffered in April, only for a

positive Covid test to rob Leeds when

he was needed most. Injuries have

restricted Bamford to only seven

Premier League starts this season and

the striker’s extended absence, along

with those of the team’s midfield

fulcrum, Kalvin Phillips, and the

captain, Liam Cooper, had

illuminated the lack of squad depth

which had brought them here.

Leeds’s nerves were palpable from

kick-off. Diego Llorente dithered and

his forward pass was charged down by

Ivan Toney. He recovered but

conceded a corner. Harrison spurned

a precious opening when he failed to

find Raphinha or Gelhardt with time

and space inside the penalty area. At

the other end, a wicked free kick from

Christian Eriksen was an early

reminder of Brentford’s threat.

When Gelhardt collected Harrison’s

flick and hammered a right-footed

shot beyond Raya into the roof of the

net, Leeds looked to have taken the

lead. The 20-year-old’s run was

fractionally offside, however, and the

VAR, John Brooks, ruled the goal out.

“Leeds are falling apart, again,” the

home crowd chorused but Leeds were

in the ascendency. Junior Firpo

cleared the crossbar with a right-

footed shot and then Raphinha cut

infield and struck a fierce left-footed

drive narrowly over.

Rodrigo had a glorious chance to

give Leeds the lead early in the

second half when Raphinha found

him in space on the edge of

Brentford’s area. The 31-year-old’s

shot was clawed away by Raya, but

moments later the goalkeeper’s

misplaced pass, and foul on Raphinha,

gave Leeds the lifeline they

desperately needed.

Canós’s goal was a fine, looping

header, and Marsch admitted that in

the frantic finale he was unaware of

the injury to Ajer, which reduced

Brentford to nine men. Marsch,

meanwhile, had sent a member of his

coaching staff to watch the action at

Burnley.

“I needed to know exactly what was

going on,” he said. “We tried to

communicate that. But we wanted to

win. To make sure Burnley didn’t get

a last-ditch effort; to seal our fate.”

GREGOR ROBERTSON

Leeds continued to push and

Harrison’s half-volley will enable

them to take stock and reflect upon a

campaign in which too much faith

was placed in the ability of Marcelo

Bielsa and the core group of

Championship players he had

elevated to previously unseen levels.

Raphinha, the

scorer of the

first Leeds

goal, joins

delighted

travelling fans