Poor Atmosphere, Poor Performance, Poor Leeds… TSS December 18, 2011 Match reviews 126 Comments Five points from the last five home games left the Whites faithful booing their own side after an abject performance saw Leeds lose at home to Reading. The only goal of the game came in the first couple of minutes – a brilliantly taken lob from Simon Church putting an immediate end to any hopes of a returning clean sheet for Andy Lonergan. Whilst a great goal from a Reading point of view, Andy Lonergan probably should have done better. He seemed to get caught in two minds, initially deciding to close Church down before stopping dead and serving the lob opportunity up on a platter. Still, there was 88 minutes left to play – Leeds would surely score, right? Wrong. Leeds never really looked like scoring either. There was a couple of chances here and there, but the Whites looked incapable of breaking Reading down for the most part, and the visitors continued to push for another themselves leaving Leeds vulnerable to a counter-attack when they did push forwards. Formation changed, substitutions made, Leeds still clueless. The problem was glaringly obvious – Leeds simply could not (or would not) keep the ball on the deck and allow momentum to build. Instead, Leeds did the predictable thing of hoofing the ball long to Becchio who never really looked capable of doing much with it. It’s been a common theme this season, that whenever we try to play hoofball football we get run off the park. The setup is incredibly predictable – it’s either hit long to Becchio, or wide to Snodgrass, both of whom were marked by several Reading players throughout. The central midfield of Clayton and Brown was one to forget, and when the substitutions were made to facilitate a change to 4-5-1 we looked even worse. Yet for all Leeds’ faults – and there were many – I left more disappointed in the crowd than I was the players. Not that I couldn’t sympathise with them. Elland Road has become an awful place to watch football over the last year or so. The once electrifying atmosphere has been replaced by an increasing number of empty seats, with the rest occupied by disgruntled fans too quick to jump on the players’ backs. There’s no precise event that’s caused this shift – it’s a combination of several things, such as increased ticket prices and a heightened sense of disillusionment with the club. But the biggest atmosphere killer of all was shifting the away fans to the West Stand and charging them £36 for one of the worst views in football – they’ve voted with their feet, numbers have dwindled and there’s no longer an opposition following to exchange blows with. To watch Leeds United play at Elland Road compared to how they play most weeks away from home, you’d have a hard time believing they were the same team. There isn’t some magical superpower embedded into our glow-in-the-dark away shirts, there’s simply a crowd behind them that the lads respond to. Where away from home the team seems to feed off the crowd, at Elland Road, the crowd seems to feed off the team. A lethargic Leeds United performance left an atmosphere I for one, felt embarrassed to be a part of. The Leeds fans are known for their passionate, hardcore following and love nothing more than to brag about that to opposition supporters, but we have no right to do so any more – least not at Elland Road anyway. The team need to do their part of course, but anyone in doubt that the atmosphere is equally as important need only look at the 2-0 win against Millwall where the lads were driven by an excellent crowd there to mourn the loss of a club hero. Booing, jeering and disgruntled sighs are more akin to Arsenal than a side built upon a “keep fighting” spirit. Times aren’t great and frustrations are understandably high, but home games will continue to be problematic unless we can recapture the defiant spirit we’re famous for. On and on…