By George Overhill

12th Apr, 2023 | 11:40am

Leeds United 'were robbed' at half time of Crystal Palace collapse - BT Sport pundit

An “astounded” Tony Dorigo has been left struggling to understand events at Elland Road as Leeds United collapsed against Crystal Palace.

The Whites were on top through the first half of the 5-1 defeat, and were only pegged back to 1-1 in the dying moments before the half, leaving the second half capitulation “hard to fathom” for the former favourite and now BT Sport pundit.

He feels that the performance before the break should never have seen the scores level when the whistle blew but can’t understand conceding four thereafter, saying: “In the first 35 to 40 minutes I thought we did everything right.”

In his Yorkshire Evening Post column on Wednesday morning (12 April) he said: “Eventually we were made to pay but if you said on the balance of play of that first 45 minutes that we were going in all square, I think we were robbed.

“We should have been ahead but of course you look back to I suppose where we should have improved this season and it’s always the case that we need a lot of chances to score our goals

“We didn’t take our chances, we didn’t put the game to bed and then I’m struggling to explain the second half.”

Move on

Everything about the second half on Sunday (9 April) has the look of a freak occurrence that can’t really be legislated for, but Javi Gracia has to ensure that is all it was.

Losing heavily to a relegation rival just at the point where things were looking up has the potential to have a negative psychological effect.

So the manager has to take whatever positives he can from the first 45 and then move on as quickly as possible by getting his players to refocus on the upcoming games.

It is true Leeds United style to snatch discomfort and confusion from a position of increasing security so perhaps the result isn’t that surprising.

But the turnaround from being the better side to barely even registering as a going concern on the Elland Road pitch when coming out after the interval was alarming to see.

It appears that it has to be a nervous slog all the way to the end but as long as the Whites are sitting in 17th or above at the end of the season that will be the most important thing.

In other Leeds United news, a stunned pundit has compared a club flop to a similarly guilded former Chelsea and Tottenham failure.