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Dean Whitehead rages at 'absolutely disgraceful' footage of Leeds United loanee Leo Hjelde at Rotherham
Cardiff City coach Dean Whitehead was left raging after Leeds United loanee Leo Hjelde was spotted clapping Rotherham’s groundsmen at the New York Stadium on Saturday.
Hjelde, 19, was laughing and joking about the efforts to remove the excess water on the pitch that caused Rotherham’s Championship clash with Cardiff to be suspended.
Cardiff were 1-0 ahead when the game was abandoned in the 47th minute due to heavy rainfall in South Yorkshire.
Footage has since emerged on Twitter showing Rotherham players and staff standing by watching the groundsmen trying to remove the water from the pitch.
In that footage, Hjelde is clearly seen laughing and clapping the efforts, much to the anger of Cardiff coach Whitehead.
He took to his personal Twitter account on Saturday (18 March) to say: “Absolutely disgraceful!
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“We have a team fighting for every ball, every point in a very tough league and I witness this!
“1,500 Cardiff supporters travelled five hours to watch our team play.
“Safe journey home. Sorry we couldn’t finish the game.”
Get a grip
Of course, Cardiff aren’t going to be happy about this.
They travelled a long way to Rotherham and were 1-0 ahead before the game was abandoned.
But what could Rotherham’s groundstaff really have done?
All of their efforts were in vain and Hjelde was just having a laugh with one of the coaches on the sidelines.
The Leeds loanee went onto the pitch not long before and couldn’t kick a ball more than a few yards due to the puddles that plagued the entire pitch.
Whitehead’s now crying his eyes out over the actions of a teenager.
It’s frustrating for Cardiff, of course it is. But clearly the Rotherham players wouldn’t have wanted the game called off because they were only 1-0 down and there was a whole half of football left to play.
It’s going to lead to more fixture congestion for them now and the damage done to the pitch by the rain could take some time to fix and some more money.
Overall, it wasn’t a good day for either club but nothing could have been done to help it, sadly.
In other Leeds United news, Jeff Stelling reacted to “terrible” footage involving a Leeds player at Molineux.
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