Bailey Peacock-Farrell may be disappointed with the goal that he conceded in Leeds United’s pre-season friendly.
Marcelo Bielsa may not be drawing major conclusions from Leeds’ clash with Forest Green Rovers given that it was the Whites’ first pre-season friendly of the summer, and the standard of the opposition that his side came up against.
However, Leeds goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell would have been forgiven for feeling that it is imperative that he takes every opportunity he gets between the sticks before the season starts in the wake of Jamal Blackman’s arrival on loan.
Ahead of the clash at The New Lawn, Peacock-Farrell hinted to LUTV that he was not planning to give up the number one jersey without a fight following Blackman’s move to Elland Road.
But his mission to stake a claim to start the Championship season ahead of Blackman started poorly with Forest Green scoring a long-range goal on the stroke of half-time on Tuesday.
Peacock-Farrell got a good hand to the powerful shot, but was unable to keep the ball out of the net as the League Two side halved the deficit after Kemar Roofe and Luke Ayling had given Leeds a 2-0 lead. He will be disappointed that he did not manage to prevent the goal.
It was not a bad performance at all from the young goalkeeper. Some of his distribution was superb and Bielsa will not find it difficult to find positives to take from the Northern Ireland international’s display. He made a fantastic stop in the second-half to keep the score from going to 2-2.
But with Blackman surely arriving with absolutely no intention of being second choice and Bielsa probably expecting to make the Chelsea loanee his number one once the campaign commences, Peacock-Farrell could have done without what appeared to be something of a mistake in what was otherwise a very sound performance.
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