Aston Villa 3 Leeds United 3: Dan James epitomises Whites’ risk-reward strategy

A point might seem scant reward for the chances they took but having been 3-1 down at one stage it represented a good return. If they could be satisfied, the neutrals would have been delighted with the entertainment they and Aston Villa laid on in a 3-3 draw.

Perhaps Villa manager Steven Gerrard spoiled the spectacle a little by tapping the brakes at half-time or maybe the intensity of such a pulsating first 45 minutes was just impossible to maintain.

Either way, injury-hit Leeds showed great spirit to claw their way back into a game their open-door defensive policy looked to have cost them. They gave Philippe Coutinho and Jacob Ramsey the space they needed to put Leeds on the back foot but a real centre-forward’s performance from the usually ill-fitting No 9 Daniel James and a set-piece goal by Diego Llorente showed why, for all the chances they can give you at times, it is very unwise to write Marcelo Bielsa’s team off.

“It was a game with alternate dominance,” said Bielsa. “With moments of good football from both teams. And a second half that didn’t stand out as much, it was very competitive.

“What we wanted (to do in the second half) was to prevent them from creating danger but to continue to attack with fluidity.”

Leeds’s approach was summed up by a couple of moments in the first few minutes.

First Illan Meslier tried to play the ball square to Llorente from so close to his own byline that it went over it for a corner Villa wasted. A minute later, Jack Harrison passed across his area to Luke Ayling, who nutmegged Coutinho from it, and the ball was worked for a flag kick at the other end.

Villa had the better of the early stages, Tyrone Mings’s header at a corner hitting Robin Koch, but Leeds opened the scoring in the 10th minute, the first of two centre-forward’s finishes from James, who struck the crossbar in between.

Midfielder Rodrigo was showing a really good understanding with the Welshman, and when he played it to him, James’s touch did not even really create any space, but Ezri Konsa’s stride was just long enough to put the shot through it and into the net.

James’s cross-shot from another Rodrigo pass was saved, and Lucas Digne did well to stop the compliment being returned, beating the Spaniard to a centre.

With the full-backs marking the two players off Ollie Watkins in Villa’s Christmas tree formation – both Emi Buendia and Coutinho went off injured in the second half – Harrison was left to man the left flank pretty much by himself but did a decent job and got forward too, turning inside cleverly at the end of a good 29th-minute run to lay the ball off for James. The shot thudded against the crossbar.

Then Villa and Coutinho came alive. When Matty Cash got the ball back from a throw-in, the Leeds defenders switched off just long enough for Coutinho to pull off into a fraction of space from which he converted the pull-back.

It was his terrific turn and pass that released Ramsey to slot in Villa’s second, and as defenders were attracted across to deal with Coutinho in the 44th minute it left Ramsey, the former Doncaster Rovers loanee, all the space he needed to make it 3-1.

James, though, got his side back into it in first-half stoppage time. Mateusz Klich backheeled for Rodrigo and when the cross looped up, James put himself where it hurt to head in from barely a yard out.

Too many of Leeds’s first-half corners had been poor but it was their route back into the game. Klich was unable to keep his shot from a Rodrigo pull-back down but it took a deflection and when Pascal Struijk won his header at the corner, Mings cleared off the line. Mings got in the way of Struijk’s header from the next one, but played it to Llorente, who found the net.

Villa were not the force they had been in the final half-hour, their bodies seemingly feeling the toll. Not that Leeds were as rampant or risky either.

Rodrigo was still lively, though, and having pulled off a clever back-header in the 74th minute he did well to anticipate Villa’s attempt to play the ball out. He found Klich but not for the first time, his shot was weak.

Leeds prepared Tyler Roberts to come on but with Ayling suffering cramp, decided to play it safe and keep James on.

Villa offered a chink of light when Konsa, on a booking for fouling James, used his elbow in the goalkeeper’s face to prevent Meslier releasing the ball quickly at a corner and was dismissed.

With stoppage time there were 10 minutes left but the gamblers had by then decided to stick; a point at Villa Park represented a good night’s work.

Aston Villa: Martínez; Cash, Konsa, Mings, Digne; McGinn, Douglas Luiz, J Ramsey (Chambers 88); Buendia (Chukwuemeka 59), Coutinho (Young 77); Watkins. Unused substitutes: Sanson, Ings, Olsen, Hause, Chrisene, Iroegbunam.

Leeds United: Meslier; Ayling, Llorente, Struijk, Dallas; Koch; Raphinha, Klich (Forshaw 85), Rodrigo, Harrison; James. Unused substitutes: Roberts, Klaesson, Bate, Gelhardt, Hjelde, McKinstry, Shackleton, Kenneh.

Referee: J Gillett (Merseyside).