Leeds United 1-5 Crystal Palace: Please stop

I know the cliche tells us that football is a game of fine margins, but is this really what will relegate Leeds United from the Premier League this season — Crystal Palace goalkeeper Sam Johnstone’s first good half for months, followed by Leeds’ worst fifteen minutes for weeks? 

There should be more to it than that by the end of May, but the scale of United’s collapse after half-time and the clinical glee with which Palace took advantage obliterated the horizon. Javi Gracia was brought aboard Leeds to turn this sinking ship around. Here Leeds went overboard, with a lifeboat to cling to but no sight of hope. 

It’d be tough to blame Gracia for this. New managers are getting shoved into dugouts all over the Premier League with clear instructions on what must be done, but their employers are not giving much thought about how. Gracia hasn’t had much time to figure things out. Since the players came back from international duty, those that didn’t return crocked faced Arsenal Saturday, Nottingham Forest Tuesday, Crystal Palace Sunday. We hoped for better than the three points Leeds got from the week; we hoped for less than the eleven goals they conceded. Gracia had to turn our hopes into results and, well, he tried. 

Perhaps against Palace we discovered the limits of what a coach can do at this stage of a season. Leeds were excellent for the first half an hour, continuing the forceful attacking play that put such fear into Nottingham Forest. It was the same starting eleven and the same strong performance, and it should have brought more goals. What it brought, instead, was the same benchmark reached against Forest but in reverse, 1-1 only this time Leeds had scored first, and this time Luis Sinisterra couldn’t put them ahead before half-time. Instead, Leeds had let a lead slip just before the whistle.

Gracia had no answer for what happened next. For the first fifteen minutes of the second half Palace threw themselves at Leeds, and two quick goals were enough to settle the match. Nobody needed the two more that followed. It was 3-1 before Gracia could get any substitutes on, and his instructions never seemed to evolve beyond, lads, whatever you’re doing, please stop.