Leeds United ended their unbeaten start to the 2024/25 campaign with a disappointing 1-0 defeat to Burnley at Elland Road in the Championship on Saturday.
Daniel Farke’s side had drawn against Portsmouth and West Brom and beaten Sheffield Wednesday and Hull City in their first four matches of the season.
That run came to an end, however, as Luca Koleosho scored the only goal of the game in the first half, with a composed finish into the bottom right corner after a slip from Manor Solomon at the other end.
The Tottenham Hotspur loanee had an unfortunate moment for the goal but he was not the worst player on the pitch for Leeds, as the rest of his performance was promising.
Manor Solomon's game in numbers
Solomon lost his footing around the halfway line to allow Koloesho to race through and score past Illan Meslier, with weak covering defending from his teammates.
However, the winger had plenty of positive moments in the game and showed nice touches and turns on the ball to make things happen for Leeds in the final third.
The Spurs loanee created three chances and completed 86% of his chances, whilst completing all three of his dribble attempts, and this shows that he was largely impressive in his use of the ball.
He also won six of his seven duels on the ground and made two tackles to help out his team defensively, which shows that the forward was strong out of possession and worked hard for the team.
Meanwhile, Wilfried Gnonto, on the other flank, was the real villain for the Whites with his disappointing performance at Elland Road on Saturday.
Wilfried Gnonto's performance against Burnley
The Italy U21 international struggled to make any impact at the top end of the pitch and will surely be frustrated with his lack of threat in the final third.
Gnonto had one glorious chance to find the back of the net in the first half, after Brenden Aaronson slipped the ball through to him, but he failed to beat James Trafford with a left-footed effort that hit the goalkeeper.
The Italian winger had three shots in total and failed to score, missing one ‘big chance’, and also ended the match with zero key passes (chances created) to his name.
Minutes played
90
Pass accuracy
81%
Key passes
0
Big chances missed
1
Duels won
7/14
Possession lost
16x
As you can see in the table above, the attacker endured a rough afternoon, losing half of his duels and giving the ball away 16 times, without making any real contributions in the final third.
Whereas, Solomon, despite his slip for the goal, created three chances for his teammates and won the vast majority of his duels to keep hold of the ball for Leeds.
These statistics show that Gnonto was even worse than the Spurs man and that it was a performance that may now leave Farke thinking about whether he should remain in the starting XI next time out.
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