Leeds United have warned 'don't mess with us' after the visitors resorted to time-wasting in the goalless draw against Newcastle United.
Leeds were by far the happier side with the point after setting out to disrupt Newcastle's rhythm in the stop-start stalemate at St James' Park. Newcastle had five times as many shots on target and a whopping nine corners but, crucially, the hosts failed to take their chances in the New Year's Eve clash after Fabian Schar, Chris Wood and Sean Longstaff spurned decent openings.
By the time four minutes of stoppage time were added on, Leeds did all they could to wind the clock down - just as Newcastle did in the 1-0 win against Chelsea back in October. At one point, in the first minute of added time, there were two balls on the pitch during a break in play as Newcastle tried to quickly get the game restarted.
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Mateusz Kilch was standing by one ball by the touchline while the nearby Tyler Adams was watching over the other. When Murphy shook off Kilch to try and pick up the ball nearest to him, Adams kicked his ball at it to delay Newcastle further. Leeds' Twitter account posted the 10-second exchange on their social media channels with the bizarre message: 'Don't mess with Leeds'.
Leeds also ate up some precious seconds deep into stoppage time when Illan Meslier took his time getting back to his feet after being pushed by Callum Wilson. Fabian Schar urged Meslier to hurry up taking his kick before Bruno Guimaraes marched over to confront the Leeds goalkeeper.
Meslier then grabbed hold of Bruno's shirt as Robin Koch, Pascal Struijk and Schar stepped in. That was the cue for Allan Saint-Maximin and Joelinton to sprint over and Callum Wilson, Jacob Murphy, Dan Burn and a number of Leeds players followed to break up the scuffle.
A frustrated Howe felt Newcastle 'didn't really see the four minutes of injury time because it was taken out of the game so a cool head is always important'. Meslier, for his part, posted a photograph on Instagram of his scuffle with Bruno after the 0-0 draw with the caption: 'In France, we don't say, 'Grab my shirt'. We say, 'Tu commences par me choper par le colback.'" That loosely translates as: 'You start by grabbing me by the scruff of the neck.'
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