According to Jon Newsome, Joel Piroe’s blunders against Southampton when he was nearly put through on goal demonstrated that the Leeds United forward’s Saturday simply wasn’t his day.
After Daniel Farke’s team was soundly defeated by the Saints, surrendering three goals before halftime after a dismal first-half performance, Newsome was speaking to BBC Radio Leeds.
Joel Piroe is off to a fantastic start at Elland Road. After his stellar tenure with Swansea, he was under a lot of pressure. He has stepped up so far, scoring four goals for the Whites.
Piroe has been silent in the number 10 position in a few of the games. And this past Saturday was undoubtedly one of those times, as the Dutchman failed to have any kind of significant influence during the first half.
Joel Piroe struggles in Leeds’ defeat to Southampton.
After the break, he did fire a shot that went straight at Gavin Bazunu despite being surrounded by bodies. However, the opportunity that he would likely regret missing the most was when he was duped by Georginio Rutter.
On the half-turn at the edge of the box, Piroe went to receive the ball. He utterly botched his lines, and Bazunu eventually received the ball. And Newsome made a suggestion that the event encapsulated his day.
“I mean, look at Piroe, he’s been fantastic so far,” he said on BBC Radio Leeds. Little ball was played to him. He is in the half turn and has no rivals. Have a touch and place it in the net’s back. It then wobbles over his foot, and he lashes out at himself in frustration. Simply not your day, then?
Daniel Farke will undoubtedly analyse extensively what went wrong for Leeds at St Mary’s. Additionally, there were other lessons to be drawn from the
However, it is hard to be too critical of any one single player. Ultimately, the team across the board were so poor. It said everything that the worst thing Leeds did in the second-half was actually score, based on the fact that the momentum then swung back to the home side.
Questions will continue to be asked about Piroe being used as more of a number 10. While he is scoring goals at a decent rate, it may not be a huge problem.
But he will probably go through a quieter period at some stage. And at that point, fans will start to wonder why he is not being used further forward.
Leave a Reply