Patrick Vieira is rueing Crystal Palace’s loss, saying his side did not deserve to leave Elland Road empty-handed as a late Raphinha penalty has resulted in back-to-back Premier League losses for the South London club.
Referee Kevin Friend awarded Leeds the spot kick after booking centre-back Marc Guehi for handball in the box after a VAR review.
In a tight match with clear-cut chances few and far in between, substitute Christian Benteke headed wide from Wilfried Zaha’s cross earlier in the second half.
“I’m really frustrated because tonight we were the better team,” Palace boss Vieira told Amazon Prime. “We created enough chances, especially in the second half, to score the first goal and we didn’t.
“In a tight game like that if you don’t take your chances you can get punished and that is what happened at the end.”
Vieira was asked if Palace had their own penalty appeal in the first period when Jordan Ayew went down under a challenge from Pascal Struijk.
“I don’t want to go into that kind of should or shouldn’t,” responded the Frenchman. “That is the decision of the referee and we have to move on. We want to concentrate on the way we wanted to play the game tonight.
“We played well. We defended well as a team and they didn’t create so many chances. We had a couple of good chances and we had some situations where we didn’t find the technical ability to play the right ball at the right time and in the right space. We were really unlucky tonight.”
Palace had one shot on target.
“It is a difficult place,” said Vieira. “We know how good they are and with the fans behind them. If we keep defending that way then we will won more than we lose.
“That defeat is different from the last one against Villa – we didn’t perform at all. This time we created situations and were unlucky the decision went against us in the last minute of the game. There is much more positivity to take from this game than Aston Villa.
“We just have to accept tonight. We’ve had some games that went in our favor and tonight it didn’t. We don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves. We have to get ready for the next game on Sunday.”