You’ve got to love the Championship, haven’t you? While the Premiership can often struggle to excite the likes of Father Stone these days, the teams one league below are providing us with real, pure entertainment week in week out. And this week’s Championship gift came from Elland Road as Leeds and Villa played out of the most remarkable draws of the season.
The brouhaha, as they say, began when Leeds defender Liam Cooper flattened Aston Villa striker Jonathan Kodija who went down injured. Villa’s players urged Leeds to put the ball out of play and it looked like Tyler Roberts was about to do so, until he thought ‘f*ck that, we’re going for automatic promotion here lads’ and played the ball down to the line to Mateusz Klich while the Villa defenders were caught completely flat-footed. Klich (whilst also being offside) cut inside and slotted the ball home into the corner of the net to the joy of the Leeds fans and the disgust of everyone else in the ground – including, bizarrely, Marco Bielsa.
Chaos ensued, to which Villa’s Ahmed El Ghazi was wrongly red-carded for an alleged elbow on Patrick Bamford, who was shown to be a sensational mug after TV replays confirmed he was touched by a whoosh of air instead of an elbow.
Check out the scenes courtesy of Soccer AM:
The most controversial goal of the season, bar NONE! 😲
Leeds United score whilst Aston Villa's Jonathan Kodjia is down injured 🤕
A mass brawl kicks off! 👊
Anwar El Ghazi gets sent off 🔴 pic.twitter.com/BHbLhr2uGb— Soccer AM (@SoccerAM) April 28, 2019
Patrick Bamford, doesn’t deserve to be a footballer.
What a W ⚓️Dirty Leeds through and through#avfc pic.twitter.com/A4V25F9Jf0
— baz brock (@Bazzyb85) April 28, 2019
After the fracas died down, Bielsa furiously ordered his team to let Villa score a goal. Everyone was on board except Pontus Jansson who wasn’t happy with the whole agreement but despite his shit fresh air attempt to kick it away from Albert Abdomah, Villa equalised.
He’s received some heat from football fans after he sent the spies to Derby’s training ground but Marco Bielsa has gained a fair few new ones after today’s actions, explaining that “English football is known for sportsmanship”. We’re not totally sure where he got that from – as John Terry told him to politely ‘f*ck off’ on the sideline – but the goal and result meant that Leeds are definitely not getting automatic promotion. And confirmed that Sheffield United are.
We don't often cover Championship football, and this is partly the reason why. It can be absolutely insane and requires an account dedicated solely to it.
Full credit to Leeds, and Bielsa in particular. A tough call to make, but the right one.pic.twitter.com/dmAw0mOhq1
— The Tactical Times (@Tactical_Times) April 28, 2019
Final thought: are we not always giving out about teams putting the ball out play for players that haven’t suffered a head injury?? Just asking for a friend.
Oh and one more thing. We paid out on Leeds after Bielsa’s call.
Paddy would’ve kicked it out. Anyway, all Championship markets over at Paddypower.comJUSTICE REFUND: We Have Refunded All Single Bets on Leeds in the Leeds vs Aston Villa Match after their perfectly legitimate opening goal was cancelled out due to a moment of madness from Marcelo Bielsa. pic.twitter.com/2lkN6AaFeO
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) April 28, 2019