Leeds snatched yet another late win, in a game where Norwich City were on top for long periods.

Many Leeds fans had expected Tresor Kandol to make his long-awaited return to the starting line-up after his sparkling form for the reserves, but instead Simon Grayson opted to go with his new on-loan signing Sam Vokes. And there were a few more changes, with Snodgrass, Higgs and Crowe all making their return from injury.

But it was Naylor who produced the first bit of excitement of the night, clattering into a Norwich forward in the opening minute to pick up an unnecessary booking. Perhaps the ex-Ipswich man wanted to get stuck into his former local rivals at the earliest opportunity, but he came off worse in the challenge, and had to leave the field for several minutes to get several stitches in a head wound.

And in his absence Norwich began to show why they have moved up the table since Paul Lambert took over, as they passed the ball well and found spaces in the Leeds defence. But it was Higgs who presented them with their best early chance, with his first real mistake since he came to the club. He failed to gather a routine shot, but managed to spin round as it bounced over his shoulder, and just managed to palm it away before it crossed the line.

Perhaps this sudden turn aggravated his previous injury, as he only lasted a further five minutes before he limped off once again, to be replaced by Casper. But by then Leeds had taken the lead, rather against the run of play. Snodgrass sent a good corner just beyond the far post, and amongst all the pushing and pulling in the box, Johnson timed his run at the far post to head Leeds in front. That was his sixth goal of the season, nearly all of them being headers from set pieces.

The goal seemed to settle Leeds down, and we had further chances through Doyle and Beckford, but Norwich had another impressive spell coming up to half-time, and forced an equaliser on 38 minutes. Lappin sent over a deep cross from the right and Holt got in front of Johnson at the far post to knock the ball home. And the visitors continued to dominate after the break, still stroking the ball around with confidence.

And on a mixed night for the goalkeepers, it was Casper’s turn to make the next howler, coming well off his line and knocking the ball about a yard in front of him, but luckily he managed to spread himself well to block the shot from Berthel-Askou. And the great Dane redeemed himself a few minutes later with a fine save as Holt fired a powerful shot from outside the area.

At this stage it seemed that a draw would be a good result for Leeds, and our best chance would be for Norwich to go down to ten men, as Russel seemed to be intent on losing his rag even though he’d already been booked. But as we moved into the final quarter of an hour Grayson introduced first Kandol and then Gradel, the latter complete with a yellow stripe across his hair. No parking on top of his head on weekdays between 8am and 6pm.

Kandol gave us a bit more of a physical presence up front, in place of Vokes, who didn’t look fully fit and struggled to strike up an understanding with Beckford. And the lively Gradel had an even bigger impact with a couple of penetrating runs down the wing. And finally Beckford was getting a few chances, the first set up by Kandol when he was denied by a great save from Forster, the second when he just failed to get a decisive touch to a ball across the face of the goal.

It looked as though it just wasn’t going to be Beckford’s night, and I started to think he was getting into a bad run, with his last goal being four games previously against Gillingham. But everything changed deep into injury time, as Forster realised that out of the three keepers in the match he was the only one who hadn’t yet made a real balls-up.

So to get in on the act he scuffed a goal kick, which went straight to Beckford while the Norwich defenders were looking the other way. Beckford gratefully seized the opportunity to race through on goal, and he fired past Forster just as he was about to be tackled. Cue for some rapturous celebration in front of the kop, including a couple of miscreants who ran on the pitch to join in the fun.

We still had to survive another couple of minutes of injury time, but successfully held out for yet another victory in a game where we hadn’t played all that well. Perhaps we keep getting late winners because of our superior fitness, or is it the spirit that Grayson has brought to the squad?

Most papers have reported that Forster’s howler sent us back to the top, but that’s not actually true, as a draw would have been enough to take us back above Charlton. But we really needed the win, to break the run of drawing games at home, and to extend our lead over a Norwich side who seem likely to challenge for promotion over the rest of the season.

Photo: Action Images

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