Just when I was thinking that the Blackpool game was a one-off freak result, we produced an equally poor performance yesterday, losing to Barsnley despite an excellent goal from Ross Mc.Cormack. So we’ve now managed four games at Elland Road since our last home victory.
Simon Grayson made two changes to his starting line-up for this game. One was enforced, with Tom Lees coming in for the suspended Darren O’Dea, but for the other he chose to recall Luciano Becchio in place of Andy Keogh. For all his hard work Keogh never seems to be much of a threat in front of goal, scoring only twice since he came back to us on loan, but Becchio hasn’t done much this season either during his time on the field, and yesterday was no different.
We began quite brightly and enjoyed quite a bit of possession, but without creating any reall decent chances, and in the 27th minute Barnsley took the lead against the run of play with a rather fortunate goal. From a throw in, a cross into the centre found Vaz Te unmarked in the centre, and he completely mis-hit his shot, but it looped over Mc.Carthy into the net.
The goal seemed to knock Leeds out of their stride, although Lees and Kisnorbo both had shots blocked as we tried to build a bit of pressure. The atmosphere was going a bit flat, and the crowd had even less to cheer about in the run-up to half time, as Barnsley went further in front four minutes before the break.
Mc.Carthy has done well up till now till he arrived on loan to replace the hapless Rachubka, but he has to take a lot of the blame for Barnsley’s second, Butterfield’ s shot from outside the box might have moved a bit in the air but he spilled it, and as none of the defenders had reacted in time to clear the danger, Davies was left with the simple task of rolling the ball into the net.
Leeds looked a bit more determined as the second half began, and nearly pulled one back when Snodgrass found space in a crowded penalty area to curl a shot towards goal, but it clipped the outside of the post before spinning behind. But the goal wasn’t long in coming, as Mc.Cormack’s 55th minute free kick went over the wall and into the top corner.
We thought there was plenty of time remaining for Leeds to get back on level terms and maybe go on to win the game, but it wasn’t to be as Barnsley got plenty of men behind the ball to protect their lead and we continued to struggle to break them down. Grayson tried a number of changes to try to give us a bit of bite up front. The ineffectual Sam was replaced by Nunez, and the Honduran then moved inside as Pugh came on for Mc.Cormack, while the other substitution saw Becchio coming off in favour of Keogh.
But we still seemed to lack any creativity. Clayton was also struggling in the centre and only Howson and Snodgrass seemed to be driving the team forward. Barnsley could even have gone further in front with a dangerous break, but Ranger could quite get the touch he needed to a dangerous ball from O’Brien. At the other end our best chance came from a Barnsley defender, when Perkins headed a cross towards his own goal and Steele had to make an excellent save.
It obviously wasn’t Perkins day, as he was then sent off two minutes from time as he pushed Clayton over outside the box, though it seemed rather a harsh second yellow card and I’m sure a free kick would have been sufficient. But the dismissal was too late to affect the course of the game, and Barnsley managed to hold out during the remaining time without too much difficulty.
Our final chance came when a deep cross from Snodgrass found Nunez completely unmarked beyond the far post, but he took far too long to tee himself up for the shot, and Steele had time to rush forwards off his line and block the ball with his chest. That was the last action of the game, before the referee put us all out of our misery with the final whistle.
Amazingly we remained in fifth place despite this result, with the teams immediately beneath us also dropping points, but automatic promotion is starting to look very unlikely as we’re now nine points short of second place. And if we’re going to get a place in the play-offs we’re going to have to play an awful lot better than this.