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Two points dropped as Leeds let it slip
Two points dropped as Leeds let it slip
Wednesday, 19th Oct 2011 15:11 by Tim Whelan

For most of this game Leeds seemed to be well on top. But we allowed a determined Coventry City side to put us under pressure in the closing stages, and it cost us dear when Wood snatched a draw with virtually the last kick of the game.

After the good run we’d had coming into this game it was no surprise that Simon Grayson made only the one enforced change to his starting line-up, with Paul Rachubka coming in for Andy Lonegran, now that our first chioice keeper has been ruled out for six weeks with a broken finger.

We started the game brightly, and found that the Coventry defence were intent on leaving Mc.Cormack unmarked at every opportunity. After six minutes he met an excellent cross from his fellow scot Snodgrass but could only send the ball looping over the bar, not quite being tall enough to get above the ball and head it downwards. Sadly, this was just the first indication that it wasn’t going to be Mc.Cormack’s night.

At the other end Coventry created a chance of their own when Rachubka got down well to save from Clingan, and we could be thankful that Jutkiwicz blazed well over from the rebound. But Leeds we still enjoying most of the possession, and Murphy had to turn a Snodgrass free kick round the post before we finally took the lead in the 27th minute.

A cross from Connolly found it’s way through to O’Dea beyond the far post, and the Irishman scored his first Leeds goal with a fierce left foot shot into the far corner that gave Murphy no chance. And still the chances kept coming, though O’Dea’s finishing wasn’t quite so deadly a few minutes later when he missed a much easier chance, heading wide when he was completely unmarked.

But the biggest howler came from Mc.Cormack, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a worse example of an excellent build up being wasted by such a terrible finish. A good passing move involving several players set up Mc.Cormack right in front of goal, but our leading scorer could only scoop the ball over the bar. To be fair, the ball was slightly behind him when it arrived, but he had time to take a touch to control it before knocking it into the net.

All the same, at half time we looked well in control of the game, although Coventry had had their moments, and I was already thinking that we needed another couple of goals to put the game beyond their reach. During the break our announcer read out the scores from elsewhere, but made no attempt to pronounce the name of Man U’s Champions League opponents, Otelul Galati. Someone should get that man a Romanian phrase book for Christmas!

We started the second half as we’d finished the first, and another well worked move ended with Clayton forcing Murphy into another fine save, but still the second goal didn’t come. By now the crowd was starting to get frustrated, and when the disappointing attendance figure of 21,528 was announced it produced an outburst of anti-Bates chanting, presumably to suggest that his ticket prices are keeping some fans away.

With 20 minutes left Grayson made a double substitution, with Becchio and Forssell replacing Mc.Cormack and Keogh, but if the intention was to kill the game off by giving us some extra punch up front then it certainly didn’t work. Forssell sat quite deep and Becchio was left on his own up front, unable to hold onto the ball as he was outnumbed by defenders each time it came near him.

And without an outlet up front the play became more compressed in the midfield, as Coventry worked hard to deny us space and our players suddenly became incapable of passing the ball to their colleagues. As Coventry began to sense they could get something from the game a shot from Hussey clipped the bar, and by the last few minutes Leeds had fallen back on defence to try to keep them out.

And we didn’t even manage to do that, as in the final minute of injury time Rachubka flapped at a cross from Christie, and could only knock it into the path of Wood, who made no mistake in knocking it into over the line. It was a shattering end to game that at one stage we seemed to be winning quite comfortably, but we should pay tribute to Coventry for the way they never gave up and kept battling away to get a result.

As the crowd filed out complaining bitterly, many were making Rachubka the scapegoat for the disappointing result, which I thought was a little unfair. For the first 92 minutes there was nothing wrong with his goalkeeping, and you could just as easily blame Mc.Cormack for his appalling miss, Grayson for his substitutions or the whole team for the way they fell back and invited pressure for the final 20 minutes.

I don’t agree with Grayson’s claim on the official site that we deserved to win this game, and it’s all very frustrating when we’ve dropped to tenth in the table and a win would have taken us up to fifth. Let’s hope that our performances can pick up again, starting with the game at Peterborough on Saturday.

Photo: Action Images



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Davy1230 added 01:34 - Oct 20
Great article and I totally agree.

What really annoyed me was that we always looked like winning the game till S G took off the front two .We then sat back and invited Coventry on to us.Suicide in any situation.It was at best tactically inept, naive and I blAme S G on this occasion. He got it badly wrong last night.
And what is wrong with Becchio? He looked tired when he came on, overweight and a little disinterested..anybody agree?
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