There was a strong sense of déjà vu as Leeds beat Wolverhampton away for the second season running. Another Wolves red card, another goal for Ayling and another dodgy celebration.
There were two changes to our starting line-up. One was enforced by the injury to Tyler Adams, with the other one tactical, as Gnonto was back in place of Summerville, who dropped to the bench. And the latter decision was vindicated as early as the sixth minute, when Gnonto went down the left wing and picked out Jack Harrison with his cut-back from the byline.
Harrison made no mistake with his left foot shot, hammering into the top corner to put Leeds in front. But Wolves seemed to recover well from their early setback, and Leeds had some desperate defending to do. Meslier saved well from Podence and Wöber got into position to make a couple of vital blocks.
The home side also had a shout for a penalty when Firpo’s leg came into Semedo’s without reaching the ball, but it looked like it was the Wolves man who had initiated the contact, as his leg had gone across into the path of Firpo’s. Thankfully the referee and VAR both thought it wasn’t worth a spot kick.
Towards the end of the first half we began to have a couple more chances of our own, though one of them resulted in Bamford having a go at Aaronson for shooting well over instead of playing him in. And we were to start the second half the way we began the first, with a goal inside the first couple of minutes.
As a deep corner came in the Wolves defence completely failed to pick Ayling up as he peeled away to the far post and was left with the simple task of heading home from close range. It was at the same end where he did his lamentable Robbie Keane cartwheel impersonation 12 months ago, and he ran towards the same corner, where the Leeds fans were celebrating. It didn’t look any better this time round!
We could have gone further in front as Harrison had a shot blocked on the line and then Roca sent the rebound just wide. On the hour mark Gracia made his first change, with the hard-working Gnonto coming off for Kristensen. That might have seemed a defensive change to preserve what we had, the Dane was to increase our lead within a minute of coming on!
Harrison played a ball across to Kristinsen beyond the far post, and although the Dane seemed to have lost possession, he kept battling away and won the ball back before shooting through the keeper’s legs from a narrow angle. At that stage the three points seemed certain, but Wolves were to pull one back only three minutes later.
Meslier came racing out of his area to head a long ball away from danger, but was let down by Roca’s poor touch as the ball landed. It went straight to Jonny, and with Mesiler stranded well off his line it was always going to be a goal if the Wolves man managed to get the right height and direction on his lob. Which he did. Garcia responded by giving our side a bit more energy, with Rodrigo coming on for Bamford.
With Wolves now back in the game Meslier made an excellent save from Jiminez, but there was nothing he could go when they scored their second in the 73rd minute. Wöber headed a cross out of the penalty area, but only as far as Cunha, and as the Wolves man shot it took a big deflection the Austrian’s ankle, to leave Meslier with no chance.
Then for the second successive season Wolves went down to ten men, although this time it happened when we were already in front, rather than the dismissal being the game-changing moment that allowed us to come back from two behind. This time it was Jonny who saw red. At first sight his challenge on Ayling looked relatively innocuous, but the VAR replay showed that he’d gone right over the ball and that Ayling was lucky to avoid serious injury.
Our final two changes saw Struijk on the field for the first time since his concussion injury, resuming his left back duties in place of Firpo, while Summerville came on for Aaronson. There was still a lot of anxiety when the board went up to show that seven minutes of stoppage time would be played, but Leeds were able to seal the win right at the end.
And it was to produce more controversy, as it came after Roca tugged at Traore’s shirt and the Wolves man stopped to appeal for a foul, reacting too late when the referee waved play on. Summerville took the ball and played an excellent ball through to Rodrigo, who chipped the advancing Sa to wrap the game up for Leeds. Nunes was shown a red card despite not having been on the field, after getting a bit too carried away with his protests.
And so it was that we claimed another vital win at this West Midlands venue, which was enough to take us from second bottom up to 14th, thanks to the very tight battle in the bottom third of the Premier League table. And after the game Wolves manager Lopetegui had more to say about the match officials than his own side’s poor defending, once he’d finally got to the post-match press conference 90 minutes after the final whistle.
"I can make a book (about bad decisions) — Liverpool, Nottingham Forest, Newcastle, Southampton, today. I want to have fair decisions and not have the sensation or the feelings it was unbalanced. At the end of the season normally they are going to be balanced but we are very unlucky, we have to be critical with the bad things but we didn’t deserve to lose this match”.
"We had a very clear penalty again but the referee and VAR thinks the opposite.” Wolves are also going to appeal against both red cards. For our part, Javi thought there were so many refereeing errors during the game that it all evened itself out. And he also spoke of the incredible tension he felt as the clock ticked away while we held onto our lead, as it would have been gut-wrenching not to win the game after being three up.
"We got a very good win, our players did an amazing game and they deserve the reward and the three points. If we analyse the game I’ll tell you we have to improve many things. Defending we can do better. We were playing against a very good team with very good players. Now we have time to enjoy the win and we can prepare with more confidence”.
"You know the points are really important and you need them. There are 11 games left and all the games are like a final for us.” Which is right, but today’s win has put us in a much better place, after a week when several of our rivals have dropped points. Let’s hope that it will prove to be the springboard for a successful fight against relegation.