Leeds United writer Lee Sobot with his verdict from the Elland Road stands as Daniel Farke's Whites crash out of the Carabao Cup at the first round stage to Middlesbrough.
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00:00Hello there, Lee Sobot at the Yorkshire Evening Post here from Ellen Road where we'll try
00:05and keep this brief because some of the lights have already gone out already and no doubt
00:09there are more about to go out very soon and the lights have well and truly gone out on
00:12Leeds United's Carabao Cup bid this season. How far that would have gone remains to be
00:17seen. Daniel Farke is saying beforehand in the press conference that Leeds obviously
00:20aren't going to win the Carabao Cup but you never know enough to have a go. Well on this
00:24evidence they fully deserve to have gone out and this evening has finished in a 3-0 victory
00:29for Middlesbrough. It goes without saying, obviously an extremely, extremely disappointing
00:34night. Boo's, lots of boo's here and a real exodus by the time the third Middlesbrough
00:39goal went in and the stadium was half empty. One of the most weird things was that we had
00:45eight minutes added time when the contest was long, long done. A really strange night.
00:49Daniel Farke has taken it on the chin this one and said that he accepts responsibility
00:53for it because he made so many changes and doesn't like to make that many changes. He
00:57made eight in total. But to be quite honest, you look at the team that was out there, still
01:01lots of experience and you wouldn't have expected that really, the way that Leeds were. In the
01:05second half, it has to be said, because the first half was goalless, both teams had chances.
01:09Leeds actually started alright. Firpo went quite early on but Borough did cause quite
01:14a lot of problems in the first half and although Leeds had more of the ball, Borough had the
01:18better chances and the second half was just an absolute horror show for Leeds defensively.
01:22They just looked like scoring every time they went forward. Three goals in quick succession,
01:26all three of them basically from counter-attacks. Leeds just exposed at the back and to be quite
01:30honest, Borough could have scored four, five or six. Leeds did have a couple of chances
01:33themselves but no doubt about it that Borough had the better chances. Very, very worrying
01:38defeat obviously. What you would say is that it's obviously not a full-strength Leeds team
01:41but that wasn't full-strength Borough either. Yes, they will probably be very, very key
01:45promotion contenders but that's what Leeds hope to be. They started the season as title
01:48favourites and already that's slipping because of Burnley's 4-1 win. They sort of got hammered
01:53into the betting, almost joint favourites of Leeds now. Obviously, loads of question
01:57marks now as Leeds go to West Brom this Saturday, which is the one that really matters. Not
02:01that this didn't matter but obviously it's about promotion this season and it's going
02:05to be a massive spotlight on Leeds now as to how they bounce back in that game at the
02:09Hawthorns, which will be obviously absolutely massive that they need to get the three points
02:13there after the draw on the opening day against Portsmouth. Plus points tonight, you're really
02:18scratching around. Routier came off the bench and looked pretty good. You can tell he was
02:22desperate to make something happen, very unlucky with the shot that hit the post. He was pretty
02:26good. Gelfart started pretty well, they play on the right wing but really, you are sort
02:31of like slim pickings when you're looking for positives tonight because it was just
02:34an awful, awful night. You say fair play to Borough, congratulations to them. They looked
02:40a very, very good team but Leeds can't be that easy to break down and just roll over.
02:44It was far, far too easy. They conceded three at the weekend, conceded another three here,
02:49six goals in two games. Nowhere near good enough and just an awful lot of work for this
02:53Leeds United side to do. Got to be a lot better than that, that's for sure. Booed off here.
02:57Leeds United nil, Middlesbrough three.