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Beren Cross

Bielsa's referee moan, Llorente blasts Raphinha and Leeds United moments you missed

Leeds United returned to the top half of the Premier League table on Tuesday night with a second-half masterclass against Southampton which delivered a 3-0 win.

Patrick Bamford, Stuart Dallas and Raphinha provided the goals at Elland Road, but here are some moments you may have missed on the night.

Bamford’s mascots

Eleven mascots were chosen to represent the Whites pre-match on the night and they got a virtual slice of the action via Zoom.

Using tablets donated to Beeston Primary School by Bamford, the children appeared on the big screen in the corner of the stadium and were given a view of proceedings via a tablet Bamford was holding.

The experience began for the kids in the tunnel where others like Raphinha stopped by to wave and say hello on camera.

Bamford took the tablet out onto the pitch and allowed the kids to see inside Elland Road from the line-up before team manager Matt Grice took the device away and ended the call.

Ayling gets the referee onside early

Luke Ayling’s polite and friendly relationship with match officials continued again last night. After the match-long rants at one linesman last Friday, Ayling was cheery with referee Andre Marriner pre-match at Elland Road.

As Marriner came past Ayling in the tunnel before kick-off they exchanged smiles and a few words. There’s no harm in keeping it friendly with the officials, of course.

Andre Marriner and Luke Ayling (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

Marriner has already refereed Leeds twice this season, both at Elland Road. The matches with Leicester City and, more recently, Crystal Palace.

The man in the middle no doubt remembers Ayling’s voice from those games.

Bielsa loses his temper

For as long as Marcelo Bielsa has been at Leeds he has not once criticised a match official, regardless of the damage done to Whites results by their decisions.

Even on the touchline, Bielsa has been good at restraining himself to furious looks at his own bench rather than directing any anger at the officials.

However, in the 11th minute of Tuesday’s game, when one of his players was challenged during a throw-in in front of the Jack Charlton Stand, Bielsa could not hide his dismay.

He turned and approached the fourth official, bellowing: “You see?!” The head coach was perplexed the decision had not gone his team’s way.

Llorente’s sure of himself

Throughout all of the injury problems Diego Llorente has had since arriving from Spain, it has been easy to forget the credentials and stock of the man.

A Spain international with a very respectable CV in his home country including formative years with Real Madrid, Llorente has every right to be confident around his team-mates.

That was underlined in the final moments of the first half when he turned to scream at Raphinha for not tracking his man in defence and leaving Llorente outnumbered.

Raphinha's vest message (Gareth Copley/PA Wire)

Despite the minimal part he has played so far this season, Llorente was more than happy to get stuck into arguably the team’s best player for not doing his job properly.

No egos in this team and nobody is beyond reproach.

Tributes made

Many of you will have seen the tributes paid by the players after the second and third goals by now.

Dallas went to the bench and held up a shirt with ‘Granny Val’ printed on the back in honour of Kalvin Phillips’s grandmother, who passed away recently.

The entire team gathered around the same shirt at the full-time whistle too to honour a woman who shot to fame after her show-stealing role in the Amazon documentary series.

Raphinha took his shirt off after that spectacular free-kick to reveal a lengthy message in Portuguese scrawled on his vest.

"Much strength for the Assis Moreira family rest in peace Dona Miguelina” was the translation of the message.

It was a message of condolence to Ronaldinho’s family after his mother died. The legendary footballer, like Raphinha, was born in Porto Alegre.

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