Leeds created almost all the chances in this Carabao Cup tie at Salford City, but we could only take one of them. And that proved costly, as we eventually went out of the competition 9-8 on penalties.
Daniel Farke made six changes to the starting line-up, but two of them were enforced anyway, with Byram injured and Prioe cup-tied, having played for Swansea in the first round. With Ayling being rested I thought Drameh might have got a game in his preferred position, but with Shackleton selected at right back instead, it was pretty clear that his days at our club are numbered.
There were two old boys in the Salford line-up, in the shape of Alex Cairns and Matt Smith, and both of them would play a significant part in the game. The pattern of play was established early on, with Leeds having almost all the possession, and Gnonto stretching their defence on the left and looking to go past defenders as he cut inside.
Salford had their only decent chance of the first half hour when a cross found Hendry in a good position, but he had to stretch for the ball and couldn’t control his shot, sending it wide of the post. Then normal service was resumed at the other end of the field, with Rutter shooting over when he should have done better, and Gnonto having a shot blocked.
Then Gnonto cut inside to set up Gelhardt, but the finish lacked any conviction and went past the post. Our best effort of the spell saw a curling shot from Summerville come back off the post, then Gray tried his luck with a dipping shot, but Cairns was in position to make the save. Which was a shame, because if that had gone in we would have had 10 different scorers for our first 10 goals of the season.
Instead of that, we managed to extend a rather less desirable record, that of conceding the first goal in every match in all competitions. A goal for which the phrase ‘against the run of play’ might have been invented. Matt Smith shielded the ball on the edge of our area and Shackleton was drawn inside to help out, so Garbutt was free on the Salford left when Smith found him with the pass.
Smith raced into the box and Struijk needed to get off the ground first to stand any chance of beating the taller man in the air. But Smith leaned on his shoulders while he sent his header into the corner of the net, though at least he had the decency not to celebrate the goal against his former club. And we could have gone further behind soon after when Ashley headed just over the bar from a corner.
As we came up to half time Ampadu took his turn to shoot over the bar and then Cairns made another fine save from Summerville. Just after the break we might have had the chance to get back on terms from the penalty spot, but the referee thought otherwise. It looked a good shout when seen live, but on the TV replay you could see that Gnonto slightly moved his leg towards the defender before contact was made, which might have swung the decision in Salford’s favour.
This obviously frustrated Gnonto, and when Summerville was brought down just outside the box and the ref really should have given the foul, Gnonto needlessly brought Bolton down and earned the inevitable booking. I thought this might lead Farke to take him off before he got into further trouble, but instead it was the ineffectual Gelhardt who made way for Sinisterra to provide a little more quality up front.
Gnotno switched over to play on the right, while Summerville moved to a more central role. We kept coming forward, but Salford were content to get plenty of men behind the ball to protect their lead and make it as hard as they could for us to play through them. But the chances kept coming and Cairns kept on making excellent saves, as he denied Ampadu and Summerville.
On 76 minutes Farke freshened things up a little more by taking Gray off to give Greenwood a go, and I thought that at least we could then look forward to a little more quality from set pieces. So it was a little ironic that Greenwood’s first touch was rather a scuffed free kick into the box, but Salford failed to clear, and Struijk was the first to react, poking the ball through a defender’s legs and into the net.
At that point it looked likely that Leeds would go on to win the tie, but Cairns was able to keep us out with yet more excellent saves, from Sinisterra, Summerville and Rutter. And his opposite number had to be alert as Salford broke away, Darlow standing tall to keep out a shot by McLennan with his chest. Eight minutes of injury time were announced, but even that wasn’t long enough for Leeds to force a winner.
Greenwood went very close from a free kick, but it wasn’t quite far enough from goal to get the ball over the wall and back down again, so his shot pinged off the top of the bar. And so under these new fangled rules the tie went straight to penalties, with no extra time. And just to prove that Greenwood was our best dead ball specialist he was nominated to take the first penalty, duly sending it right into the corner.
But I was never convinced that Rutter should have been one of our first five penalty takers. As he stepped up I thought he was bound to try something clever and miss, and so it proved. He thought he could wait for the keeper to dive and send it the other way, but Cairns never moved and had no trouble saving the rather weak shot.
Everyone else scored until McLennan stepped up for Salford’s 5th penalty, so if he scored they would be through, but he sent it crashing against the bar. Surely our superior players would go on to win it after that reprieve? Our next four penalties were expertly sent right into the corner, meaning Salford had to score every time to stay in. Darlow was close to saving more than once, but didn’t quite make it.
But we got to Shackleton as the last outfield player, and he hit the bar, so once again Salford would be through if they scored with the next kick. We thought Darlow had given us a lifeline with a save, but he had come off his line too soon and the kick was retaken. He also got a yellow card for his troubles, and I’ve no idea why a technical infringement like that has to be a booking. Ashley made no mistake the second time and we were out.
Daniel Farke sounded a little aggrieved when he spoke to the club’s official site. "It was an incredible amount of chances that we have created, it’s so difficult to create big chances against a side who is sitting that deep and defends for their lives and for them, it is the game of the season. We created so much, it felt like we had enough chances to score five by half time, but the reality is we just scored one in 90 minutes.”
"It’s disappointing for the lads, but performance wise I can’t really accuse them.” Apart from not converting more than one of our many chances, of course. But we shouldn’t read too much into this result. We would have been more effective up front if Piroe had been able to play, and we will be back to full strength on Saturday, in the competition that really matters.