Leeds United 2  Cheltenham Town 0 

In some ways this felt like a bit of a low-key victory over Cheltenham Town, in front of a fairly sparse crowd, but we deserved the win for our persistence after a frustrating first half. And these are a very welcome three points after our defeats on the road, with some vital games to come.

There were three changes to the starting line-up from the abysmal defeat at Hereford. Two of these were down to players being available once again, with Hughes back from injury and Douglas from suspension. And it was no surprise to see Trundle dropped to the bench after his lethargic performances, which led to Snodgrass playing as a striker and Delph playing wide on the left. The other change saw Ben Parker returning at left back, as Dickinson had gone back to Stoke at the end of his loan spell.

For most of the first half it was one way traffic, with Cheltenham goalkeeper Brown putting in an inspired performance to keep them in the game. His first good save came when Becchio got lucky as a defender failed to control the ball, as Brown was quickly off his line to block the shot. He made other good saves from Naylor, Howson and Snodgrass, while another good chance came when Douglas headed against the bar from a corner.

Meanwhile, a few chants of “we all love Leeds but hate Ken Bates” came from the kop, perhaps from fans who are blaming him for our recent run of bad form. And there was a disturbance in the lower kop when a couple of fans were thrown out and the rest of the section stood up to shout at the stewards.

Hughes’ return lasted only 33 minutes before he took one knock too many and had to go off, being replaced by Kilkenny while Douglas dropped back to right back. It was the Aussie’s first appearance for some time and he put in a busy performance, obviously keen to impress. And it helped that he was in his preferred role in central midfield, rather than stuck out on the right as he was earlier in the season.

More chances came and went, with Robinson heading against a post, and I thought that it might be just one of those days and we’d end up dropping even more points that we could ill afford. Cheltenham could even have sneaked a goal at the other end, and Casper had to be alert to keep out a shot from Owusu on the break. And as Howson fired well over the bar I started to think he was looking a bit off colour – he hadn’t scored twice in the play-offs by shooting like that.

Our final chance of the first half came when Delph was brought down in a promising position, but although Robinson got the free-kick over the wall, it curled just past the post. We continued to dominate after the break, with Delph shooting just wide, before we finally got the breakthrough in the 54^th. minute. Robinson crossed from the right, and Howson found space a couple of feet in front of a defender, turning to flick a header into the net from fifteen yards. Great relief all round.

It would have been just typical if Cheltenham had equalised after we’d taken so long to get in front, and they did get the ball in the net, but Owusu was quite rightly flagged offside, after getting a couple of yards ahead of the defence before he headed home. And in the 66^th. minute it was Leeds who scored the second goal of the game, again through Howson. The defence failed to track him as he ran across the area to beat the offside trap, and Delph found him with a superb through ball. Howson made no mistake, shooting past the keeper from just inside the area. Always said he was a brilliant player.

There was no way we were going to let Cheltenham have another sniff of a goal as we cruised through the rest of the game, with that man Brown forced into making further saves from Snodgrass and Kilkenny. Grayson made a his other two substitutions late on, with Trundle coming on for a few minutes and Grella as we moved into injury time, with the American getting a huge cheer for making a clearance out of our area with a spectacular overhead kick. If you’re only going to get one touch of the ball, make it a good one.

This victory has hauled us back to the fringes of the play-off places, as other results went our way, but our next two games are both against sides we need to overtake to climb into the top six. It’s a start to beat the bottom team at home, but now need to build on this victory and start to pick up results away from home.

Photo: Action Images

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