Leeds United writer Lee Sobot with his verdict from the Elland Road stands on an absolute crushing of Norwich City as Daniel Farke's Whites book their place in the Championship play-off final.
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00:00 Hello there, Lee Sobot at the Yorkshire Evening Post here from Ellen Road, an absolutely ecstatic
00:07 Ellen Road where Leeds United have booked their place in the Championship play-off final
00:11 with a 4-0 romp really and that's all it was, you can't say anything different than that
00:15 against Norwich City who were absolutely taken to the cleaners by Daniel Farks-White and
00:20 really anybody who was coming into this with worries about the play-offs before, certainly
00:24 as far as the semi-final goes, what was everybody worried about really? I was one myself, came
00:29 in here this evening, didn't really know what to expect, I think a lot of people probably
00:33 felt a little bit like that because you just didn't know what Leeds were going to turn
00:36 up with the sort of running they've had recently which has obviously led to them missing out
00:39 on automatic promotion but my word did they respond in style here, Scott said the foundations
00:44 were put in place by the goal of Straw at Norwich at the weekend and they just absolutely
00:49 battered Norwich this evening, a very very impressive performance and you've got to say
00:53 that both the performance and the atmosphere here at Ellen Road were absolutely incredible,
00:58 scarves being waved by everybody as the team came out, it's always noisy here but this
01:03 was just a different level tonight and the key tonight you felt was a good start from
01:07 Leeds, an early goal and they got that, it was just seven minutes on the clock and an
01:11 unlikely scorer really with Ilya Gruev taking the free kick when he was presented with another
01:16 one in the second half, everybody was chanting his name to take it which was quite a nice
01:19 moment and even by that point Leeds were out of sight really, never felt like Norwich were
01:22 going to come back into it once they'd built up a 2-3-0 lead in the end by half-time. Gruev
01:28 with the free kick, a very very smart free kick, just sort of like caught the keeper
01:31 napping a bit, Angus Gunn really into the bottom corner, the place went absolutely berserk
01:35 as you can imagine and then pretty quickly afterwards 2-0, an absolutely fantastic cross
01:40 from Willy Nonto to Pirou at the back stick with a fine header for that one, 3-0 to Jorginho
01:45 Ruta, I mean Leeds have been needing him to return to his best in my word, he definitely
01:49 did that this evening, 3-0 at half-time and we all know it's the playoffs and we know
01:53 this is Leeds and anything can happen but it didn't even feel like Norwich were going
01:56 to come back from that, let alone when it went 4-0 through Somerville after the break,
02:00 there was other chances even after that, I mean it could have been anything, it could
02:02 have been 5-6-7 really to be honest, Angus Gunn made some good saves in the second half,
02:06 Norwich tried to threaten but they just couldn't get going really, brilliant defending from
02:09 Leeds and a clean sheet and a 4-0 romp and now heading to Wembley for the playoff final
02:14 so remains to be seen obviously who they play, the second semi-final on Friday night between
02:20 Southampton and West Brom, obviously it won't be lost to anybody that Southampton did the
02:24 double over Leeds this season but put simply if Leeds play like that in the playoff final
02:29 they're going to take an awful, awful lot of beating, it's a big if obviously, it's
02:32 a grand stage and everybody will have to stand up to it and whatnot but they certainly did
02:35 tonight so we'll wait and see what happens with that second semi-final but this was very
02:40 much Leeds United back to their best and I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that
02:44 first half display was the best half of the season and probably the best half of football
02:48 under Daniel Farke for definite, fantastic stuff, a lot of worries coming into this game,
02:53 not now, all down to one game, Leeds United are one game away from the Premier League,
02:57 Leeds United 4, Norwich City 0, Wembley bound.