{"id":157092,"date":"2025-08-19T00:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T00:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/157092\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T00:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T00:52:10","slug":"leeds-use-elland-road-x-factor-to-beat-everton-in-premier-league-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/157092\/","title":{"rendered":"Leeds use Elland Road &#8216;X factor&#8217; to beat Everton in Premier League opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leeds, amid the cacophony, pinned passive, panicky Everton back in the first half, every tackle bringing supporters to their feet &#8211; especially a crunching challenge by Ethan Ampadu that left Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall prone on the turf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If there was a worry for Leeds and Farke, it was that their dominance in the first half brought no reward, their attack a blunt instrument despite their superiority, with only one of their 12 shots on target.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Could they maintain that intensity after the break? The answer was no.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Instead, Leeds showed other qualities they will require this season as they dug deep, did the dirty work &#8211; albeit with little or no threat from a dreadful Everton &#8211; and eventually claimed the win with that dramatic late twist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">New Leeds keeper Lucas Perri was given a comfortable introduction as Everton left him virtually unemployed apart from one low shot from Carlos Alcaraz in the closing stages, which he saved comfortably.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Everton introduced new loan signing Jack Grealish with 20 minutes left, but this was a performance beyond rescue and redemption &#8211; an illustration of why Moyes has expressed his concerns about the lack of new arrivals, with acquisitions needed at right-back, on the right side and in the central midfield position.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Moyes clearly feels France under-21 striker Thierno Barry is a raw work in progress, but it is hard to see how he could have delivered anything worse than the performance Beto served up at Elland Road.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leeds, in contrast, will be buoyed by the sheer exuberance and energy that poured down from the stands into Farke&#8217;s players. One game only, yes, but the surge of belief and optimism this result and performance will deliver is vital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leeds, amid the cacophony, pinned passive, panicky Everton back in the first half, every tackle bringing supporters to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":157093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-157092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115052697835052237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}