Leeds United’s promotion chasers have held a team meeting to clear the air of frustration which fogged their grip of Championship reality on Tuesday.
Luton Town’s three shots to the Whites ’ 23 summed up why the 1-1 draw was such a hard pill to swallow at Elland Road, especially for the likes of Pablo Hernandez.
Ugly scenes marred the aftermath of the match when the Spaniard and compatriot Victor Orta argued with Luton boss Nathan Jones, who admitted the fracas was his fault.
It was one by-product of the pain and anger United felt, according to Kalvin Phillips, in facing, and failing to beat, another ultra-defensive opponent.
With 40 matches played across the board, the Whites still hold a one-point advantage at the top of the league and, crucially, six points to Brentford in third.
On Wednesday, Phillips said, the players came together and hit the diffuse button on what had built up since the night before.
“We were speaking about it yesterday as a team,” said Phillips.
“Luton came to not get beat and came to frustrate us and just sat back.
“As a team we find it more comfortable going at a team that’s coming at us, catching them on the counter-attack or just having a good battle.
“With Luton, it frustrated us a little bit, you saw that towards the end of the game, us players arguing and stuff like that.
“It’s not really in our nature to start arguing between each other.
“We had a talk yesterday and said no matter what happens, as long as we’re confident in ourselves and as a team we’ve got to keep on fighting to try and get results.”
After 40 matches last season, the Whites were third, one point behind Sheffield United, but eight behind Norwich City.
Naturally, the pressure was far greater then, with their fate not even in their own hands at that point.
Phillips admits it does feel different this time around, though the same critics remain with their same prophecies of doom.
Confidence is higher this time around though, and it’s more of a closed group, immune to that exterior pressure, Phillips says.
“With what’s been going on it’s been hard to try and shift focus from getting back into football and back off football and then back into it again,” he said.
“Everyone knows we want to be back in the Premier League and we don’t want to take what we’ve got now for granted.
“This time last season we were second or third and the pressure was really building on us.
“We had a lot of people talking saying we weren’t going to do well or we weren’t going to get promoted.
“Now, you’ve still go those people that say that, but now the team’s such a closed group and they’re so confident in their selves and we know, no matter what, if we perform like we have done in the last games we’ll definitely pick up points and get some good results.”
