Tuesday night and Elland Road was the elephant in the room as Javi Gracia ploughed through the post-match press conference of a game Leeds United were already trying to forget about. Going away from home to Arsenal, the league leaders, had never generated too much hope on the terraces or in-house, so a 4-1 defeat did not give too much cause for an inquest.
The real questions, and the answers from Gracia for that matter, gave a nod to Nottingham Forest’s visit to West Yorkshire. At the time of writing, it will be 14th and 12th visiting 16th-placed Leeds in midweek for two, as pure as you’ll find, six-pointers.
Pascal Struijk had the nod over captain Liam Cooper in Saturday’s line-up which was a shock given how closely their minutes have tallied since early February and their vastly different statuses in the squad. Gracia put it down to the Dutchman’s longer time in training over the past few weeks, but it’s also fairly clear three matches in a week would have been too much of a stretch for the skipper.
