#still in the premier league

Leeds United: Meslier, Firpo, Koch, Cooper, Raphinha, Llorente, Rodrigo, Harrison, Gelhardt (Struijk 71), Greenwood (Klich 85).

Subs not used: Klaesson (GK), Roberts, Bate, Hjelde, Cresswell, Shackleton, Gray.

Prior to this season’s final day fixtures Everton had already won their game in hand, making them safe from relegation. Burnley drew their game in hand and climbed above us on goal difference, meaning that in order to survive in the Premier League we had to get more points from this game than they did from their home game against Newcastle, which wasn’t very likely….

Brentford looked like they were in danger of being sucked into the relegation zone half way through the season but - unlike Leeds - invested wisely in the January transfer window and as a result have managed to finish in mid-table. They’ve got a settled side that’s been on a good run recently and were definitely favourites to win against Leeds, so I’d pretty much given up hope that we would somehow manage to stay up.

As it turned out, Patrick Bamford didn’t make it back into the matchday squad as (after testing positive for Covid), but Tyler Roberts made a surprise return to the bench.

The Leeds players made a very nervous start to the game, which started off pretty uneventfully with neither side really threatening until the 20th minute, when we thought Joe Gelhardt had scored, but VAR ruled that he was marginally offside….

Brentford created a few chances before the break but we managed to get to half time without conceding and the good news from Turf Moor was that Newcastle were one up. Things looked even better when Raphinha was brought down in the Brentford box and scored from the spot in the 56th minute, and soon after that Newcastle got another goal. But then Burnley pulled a goal back and Brentford equalised, which ensured that the last few minutes of the game were tense as fuck….

However, events immediately swung back in our favour when Kristoffer Ajer had to leave the field with a serious injury after Brentford had already made all three substitutions and shortly after that Brentford’s scorer Sergi Canos was sent off, reducing them to 9 men. Not surprisingly, Leeds had most of the possession for the remainder of the game and eventually got a last gasp winner to secure our Premier League status.

When I eventually have my first heart attack it will probably be during a Leeds United game and this is probably the closest I’ve come to date. Supporting Leeds is never boring, so it will be interesting to see what happens next….