Just when we thought things were looking up after the takeover and the two wins against sides near the bottom of the table, Leeds produced yet another abysmal home performance to allow Nottingham Forest to take the points.
Brian McDermott decided to revert to a 4-4-2 once again, as the injured Zaliukas was replaced by Rudy Austin, despite the evidence we’ve had this season that the defence doesn’t adapt very well to all the constant changes in formation and don’t seem to know what they’re doing. Up front it was Noel Hunt’s turn to have a go in place of Matt Smith.
I say the formation was 4-4-2, but for most of the time we were playing with only two of the back, as the lack of width in the midfield meant that the two full-backs kept pressing forwards, leaving the central defensive pair horribly exposed whenever we lost possession.
And that happened as early as the second minute, with McLaughlin collecting a loose ball and playing an excellent pass to Derbyshire, the man named after the county of Forest’s biggest rivals. Derbyshire timed his run perfectly to stay onside, then raced through to place the ball past Butland into the corner of the net.
And the second arrived in the 16th. This time we had plenty of players back, but it didn’t make much difference as Wooton whacked the ball against Derbyshire, to allow the Forest man plenty of time to take the ball round Butland and guide it home. It was a pretty shocking error from a defender who cost us £1 million.
Shortly afterwards Lees was booked for bringing Derbyshire down as the only way he could stop yet another breakaway, and I could see us finishing the game with 10 men, or even fewer. I thought it could be yet another hiding, and at that stage I would gladly settled for 2-0. And so did Forest, as from then on they were mostly content to sit back and absorb the pressure.
Though we began to enjoy a lot more possession, our attacks didn’t carry anything like as much threat as the visitors, mainly through a lack of creativity in midfield. It didn’t help that Murphy was withdrawn from the more forward role where he’d been so effective against Blackpool, with Austin playing behind the front two instead. And our main tactic was just to lump in high crosses, despite the lack of height in our attack.
Our main threat came from Ross McCormack free kicks. Before half time he sent once just past the post, and 10 minutes after the break he got one on target, which forced De Vries to scramble across and tip the ball round the post. The Forest keeper tweaked a calf muscle in making this save, but he hobbled on for the next 25 minutes in increasing discomfort.
McDermott made his first change on the hour, with Smith coming on for Hunt, and the other two were enforced, with Pugh coming on for Warnock, and Mowatt for Tonge. In the last 20 minutes we nearly scored twice from an unusual source, with a mis-hit cross from Pugh coming back off the bar, and the rebound cleared only as far as Brown, whose fierce left foot shot was blocked by a defender.
De Vries finally had to go off with 10 minutes left and his replacement was the inexperienced Evtimon. The Bulgarian’s handling didn’t inspire much confidence which gave us a bit of hope
late in the game, and immediately Smith beat him to a header but couldn’t guide it in the right direction.
The various injuries meant that five minutes were added on at the end, but even that wasn’t long enough for Leeds to force a breakthrough, and Forest held on for the points. All very disappointing. For months McDermott has been excusing the poor performances on the uncertainty behind the scenes, but that now seems to be settled and we’re still getting poor results against all but the bottom few sides.
In his interview after the game McDermott spoke of having a clearout in the summer, but Cellino might be thinking of a clearout of his own, and you have to wonder if McDermott will still be wearing his tracksuit in the Leeds dugout in August.