Jonty Banks

Mon 6 February 2023 13:10, UK

Match of the Day 2 pundit Leon Osman believes the burden Leeds United placed on Willy Gnonto during the loss to Nottingham Forest was “quite a concern” and that the young winger carried the attack all game long.

Jesse Marsch’s Whites fell to an underwhelming 1-0 loss at the City Ground on Sunday (5 February), and it was their attack that once again failed to fire on all cylinders.

Italian attacker Gnonto continued his rich vein of form, proving himself a menace with his physicality and dribbling ability on the left wing, and producing a man-of-the-match performance despite the defeat.

Analysing the encounter on Match of the Day 2 (39:09), pundits Osman and Nedum Onuoha highlighted that Leeds became predictable in their attacking strategies, and this made Gnonto easier to defend in the second half.

Osman said: “It is quite a concern for Leeds United. They’ve made signings, Jesse Marsch has said his team are where he wants them to be and it is time to start pushing forward, but their whole attack today was centred around this young man Gnonto, who has actually been terrific since he made his debut not too long ago.

“Today, he was carrying Leeds United as a team, certainly in attack, but if you’ve only got one source of attack, the opposition can maybe make changes and stop that from happening.

Onuoha added: “And this is why you saw Serge Aurier coming on, and he made a big difference.

“Because of what we saw Gnonto in that first half, Aurier was more aggressive in his approach in terms of trying to defend him. It wasn’t always clean in terms of winning the ball, but Gnonto, you could see him, he didn’t disappear from the game as such, but he was far less dangerous.”

Great point

Gnonto was quite superb on Sunday afternoon despite not getting the goal his performance deserved.

In the first half especially, he was always keen to get on the ball, drive at the Forest back four and get to the by-line to carve open chances for his fellow attackers to feed from. His small but equally strong physique makes him a nightmare to deal with and Forest struggled to defend this flank in the opening 45 minutes.

However, the Whites did look a little bit of a one-trick pony, and as soon as Steve Cooper cottoned on, the Italian’s influence on the game dried up.

What is even more worrying now is that teams will prepare to face Leeds by marking Gnonto out of the game, and without him Marsch’s side wouldn’t have carved open any chances of note.

For a player who is just 19 years old, far too much pressure and goalscoring burden is being placed on his shoulders. Those around him need to step and start to deliver the goods in the final third.

In other Leeds United news, Sky Sports made a major Daniel James blunder ahead of the game.