Leeds avoided defeat away from home for only the fourth time this season, but Nottingham Forest were left aggrieved by two offside decisions.

There was one change to the starting line-up, with Doukarra dropped to the bench after his ineffectual performance against Fulham and replaced up front by Billy Sharp, though Sharp was to spend much of his time playing wide on the left. Forest fielded two former Leeds loan players in Eric Lichaj and Dexter Blackstock, and Blackstock’s afternoon was to go the same way as his spell at Elland Road, ending too soon because of a knee injury.

With a crowd of only 22,000 it was difficult to see why Forest felt the need to cut the Leeds allocation, when the home fans in the other half of the Bridgeford Stand could easily have been accommodated elsewhere in the stadium. But at least the Leeds fans who couldn’t get tickets could watch the game on Sky, and we’re not going to lose sleep about Forest costing themselves extra revenue by limiting the attendance.

The game began at a frantic pace but with little quality, though Leeds managed a couple of good chances after 10 minutes. First Mowatt sent in a fierce shot from outside the box which a defender did well to block, with the deflection looping just wide. The resulting corner was played to Adryan, and from his cross Antenucci’s shot was saved by Darlow, and Pearce should have scored from the rebound instead of putting it over the bar.

But that was as close as we would get in the first half, and from then on Forest had most of the possession. And they had the ball in the net after 21 minutes, but the linesman ruled that Fryatt had been offside as the ball came through to him, after failing to notice that Byram had been playing him on beyond the far post.

Silvestri had to be alert to keep out a header from Blackstock, but Forest finally took the lead just before the break. Once again Leeds produced a masterclass of poor defending. First Mancienne was unchallenged as he headed goalwards and then Fryatt lost Warnock to poke the ball home from close range. And there was no doubt he was onside this time as we had a defender stood virtually on the goal-line.

At that stage we seemed to be heading for yet another away defeat, but nine minutes after the break we shocked ourselves by grabbing the equaliser. As Byram came into the box on a mazy run he went over the outstretched leg of Fox, whose bright coloured charity beard wasn’t enough to win him any sympathy from the referee. Sharp hammered the penalty straight down the middle, and thankfully Darlow had dived to his right, as he’d have saved it if he’d just stood still.

But Forest stepped up the pressure to try to regain the lead, and Hunt wasted a great chance when he tamely scuffed a shot straight into Silvestri’s arms. The full-back had had time to take a shot and then shoot, and maybe a forward would have produced a more composed finish. Then Antonio forced Silvestri into a much more difficult save, though the ref should have blown for a foul on Antennuci earlier in the move.

By now Leeds were reducing to trying to snatch something on the break, but we went close when Cook produced a good run down the right and found Sharp unmarked beyond the far post. His fierce shot for Darlow to hold, and the Forest keeper was relieved to see the ball roll wide instead of into the net. But Forest kept coming, and there was further controversy when Fryatt had a ‘goal’ disallowed for the second time in the game.

There were howls of outrage from the home crowd when they replayed the incident on the big screen (like they’re not supposed to, of course) but in fact it showed that Fryatt’s body was very slightly ahead of the defender rather than being level, so by a very narrow margin the officials got that one right.

As Forest continued to press Silvestri did well to block a dangerous ball as Burke cut into the area, before being fouled in the subsequent scramble. And the Italian went on to make further fine saves from Tesche and Lansbury to keep us in the game. But despite the pressure Neil Redfearn was reasonably positive with the substitutions he made late in the game.

First Morison came on for the tiring Adryan, and seemed to be keen to impress after all his time as a fringe player at Elland Road. The next change was enforced, with Sharp limping off to be replaced by Tonge. Warnock seemed to be limping a couple of times but managed to last the pace, so Redfearn was able use his last substitution by bring Doukarra on for Antenucci to give us a bit more energy up front, and the Frenchman soon went close with a fierce effort that Darlow did well to push wide.

We still had four minutes injury time to survive, but we managed to see out time quite comfortably and claim a valuable point. It’s good to break the run of defeats away from home, but if the two offside decisions had gone the other way we’d be moaning about yet another poor result. You could say we’d battled well throughout the game and could have nicked it, but our defending is going to have to improve if we’re going to pull away from the bottom of the table.

Photo: Action Images

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