Aston Villa’s winning run came to an end against Leeds thanks to what was one of the most eventful 1-1 draws that those who watched it will ever see.
With Villa having already guaranteed a play-off spot and Leeds needing a miracle to achieve automatic promotion ahead of Sheffield United, many would have expected this game to be played like it was a friendly, but that was far from the case.
The first-half was played out at a frenetic pace and the home fans, who are obviously still aggrieved at having thrown away their chances of automatic promotion thanks to losses against Wigan and Brentford, were getting increasingly agitated as the officials were awarding Villa countless free-kicks for fouls on Grealish.
They were all fouls, so they didn’t really have much grounds for complaint, but that didn’t stop them. The riled up crowd led to a sense of injustice on the pitch, which then led to the game being played like it was the play-off final and not a dead rubber.
The biggest moment of controversy came in the 75th minute, with the scores still at 0-0. Jonathan Kodjia was down injured near the halfway line, and Tyler Roberts went to kick the ball out so he could receive treatment, but then changed his mind and sent Mateusz Klich on his way to score against a Villa defence that had stopped.
A ruckus ensued and Ahmed El Ghazi was sent off for an alleged elbow on Patrick Bamford. However replays showed that it was simulation and El Ghazi’s red card should be overturned on appeal.
Bielsa knew that this was very poor sportmanship from his side, so he instructed his team to let Villa score an equaliser right away. Pontus Jansson must not have got his message though as he tried to stop Albert Adomah from putting the ball into the net.
Leeds ended the game strongly, but they couldn’t find the winning goal and 1-1 was how it ended.
This is how we rated the Villa players:
