Leeds United 0–0 Crystal Palace: Defences Shine in Goalless Draw
Elland Road has seen its share of chaos and late drama. This wasn’t one of those days. Leeds United and Crystal Palace spent 90 laboured minutes cancelling each other out, a match of half-moments and almosts that never truly caught fire.
What it did reveal, though, was a Leeds side strangely blunt in attack and a Palace team suddenly looking like it has remembered how to defend.
Leeds run out of ideas
Daniel Farke’s team have been sharp going forward this season. Here, they were anything but.
Leeds mustered only two shots on target. Two. At home. That lack of incision told the story more clearly than any possession stat.
Most of their promise came down the left. Gabriel Gudmundsson and Noah Okafor found pockets of space and drove at Palace, but the final ball deserted them. The moves kept building nicely then dissolving on the edge of the box.
In the middle, Dominic Calvert-Lewin was left feeding on scraps. The service into him was poor, the crosses either under-hit or overcooked, and when a genuine chance finally arrived, he fluffed his lines.
James Justin slid in the pass of the afternoon after the break, threading the ball into Calvert-Lewin just a few yards out. Unmarked, central, staring at Walter Benitez from point-blank range, the striker should have scored. Benitez stood tall, saved, and Elland Road groaned.
It summed Leeds up: the move was right, the finish anything but.
Sensing the drift, Farke shifted to a back four in the second half, searching for more thrust and numbers higher up the pitch. The change never really bit. If anything, it opened the game up for Palace, who started to look like the side more likely to steal it.
Farke, though, was content enough with the platform his defence continues to provide.
“Dominic [Calvert-Lewin] had an excellent chance in the second half and sometimes you want to take a dirty one-nil but I’m quite happy with the clean sheet and to extend our unbeaten run,” he said.
Muharemovic carries the threat – from centre-back
When your centre-back is your biggest attacking menace, it usually says plenty about your afternoon.
Tarik Muharemovic had more shots than any other player on the pitch. Four efforts, all from set pieces, all a reminder that Leeds’ most coherent route to goal came from dead balls, not open play.
He was again among their standout performers. Defensively solid, aggressive in the air, and consistently alive to second balls in both boxes, Muharemovic has quietly built a strong start to the season.
In Fantasy terms, he still hasn’t blanked: one assist, two clean sheets and six DefCon points across five matches underline his reliability. Leeds go into the international break having conceded only three goals so far – the joint-fewest in the league alongside Everton.
This is a side that knows how to shut the door. It just didn’t find the key at the other end.
Stach off-colour, numbers still there
Anton Stach had one of his quieter afternoons. His set-piece delivery, usually a weapon, repeatedly failed to clear the first man or find a teammate in a dangerous area.
Yet the German still emerged with DefCon points after the late Opta update, hitting the defensive contribution threshold for the third time in five matches. That’s despite operating higher up the pitch, often just behind Calvert-Lewin rather than sitting deep.
Across the opening five Gameweeks, Stach now sits second among midfielders for total DefCons with 61, trailing only Brentford’s Vitaly Janelt. Even when he doesn’t quite click creatively, his work rate and defensive output continue to register.
Palace dig in and rediscover their shape
If Leeds’ attack disappointed, Palace’s back line did the opposite.
They arrived at Elland Road having shipped 11 goals in their first four games. That fragility had become a theme. Here, it was ripped up.
Palace were compact, aggressive and disciplined. The distances between the lines were tighter, the full-backs more selective in when they pushed on, and the midfield screened intelligently. Leeds were pushed into wide, harmless areas for long stretches.
They might even feel they should have left with all three points.
Tyrick Mitchell thought he had found the breakthrough after the interval, sweeping home from an Anan Khalaili delivery, only to see VAR chalk it off for offside. The away end’s celebrations were cut short, but the move itself – quick, incisive, well-timed – was a rare flash of attacking clarity.
Daichi Kamada also threatened. Drifting into pockets between Leeds’ lines, he found room to turn and shoot, dragging one effort just wide and finishing with three attempts overall. The Japanese midfielder gave Palace a foothold in advanced areas that Leeds struggled to match.
Pierre Sage liked what he saw from his side without the ball.
“I prefer to have the ball, and I think it’s the best way to defend. But in this league, with our players, we have to be maybe more patient in our way of defending. That’s why we improved that last week. We showed that in our game on Thursday and today too. And we gave less space, less time to the opponent.
“I think it’s better. And the mindset is especially different, I think, to before, because we are more aggressive and more on the players. We go on quickly when the ball is on the side and that changes things. That’s why there’s a situation. And when you have this kind of problem, we resolve it for the moment. But we have to keep it, because doing it one game is easy – we need to do it every game.”
The message was clear: this can’t be a one-off.
Tomiyasu blow, Lerma steps in
Palace’s defensive resolve came with a cost. Takehiro Tomiyasu was forced off at half-time with a calf issue, prompting Jefferson Lerma to drop into the back line.
Sage explained the change.
“He was injured in his calf. I think it’s not too serious, but it’s too much to play if you want. And I think it’s a good sign when a player says ‘I’m not able to play more because I’m not 100 percent’ – it’s a sign of honesty and I like this kind of thing.
“All the four players who played in this position and that’s why I think we made this kind of performance, because when the defenders are good defensively and offensively we can play and we can cancel or prevent the chances of the opponent.
“He [Lerma] gave us what he’s able to give about his aggression, about his heading, especially defensively. He played well with the ball too, and I think it’s a good step for us because as I said on Thursday, if we win some players it will be better and better, because we will have more solutions.”
Lerma’s introduction did not disrupt Palace’s organisation. If anything, his physicality and aerial strength helped them ride out Leeds’ sporadic late pressure.
Leeds walk into the international break unbeaten, defensively stingy, but with a nagging question: can a team with this much control keep climbing if its centre-forward is starved and its best chances fall to a centre-back from corners?
Palace leave with something they badly needed – a clean sheet and a blueprint. Now they have to prove it wasn’t just an Elland Road one-off.
