Accrington Stanley began this tie in determined fashion, but after Jack Harrison had put Leeds in front midway through the first half it was relatively plain sailing for Leeds as we went through to the 5th round for the first time in seven years.

Jesse Marsch kept his promise to give the FA Cup the respect the tradition of the competition deserves, and he named just about the strongest squad he could have done with the players available. Cooper and Adams missed out through injury and Gnonto was suspended due to the new FA Cup rules, having been booked during both games against Cardiff.

We saw new signing Rutter for the first time and he made a lively contribution, though understandably looked a little bit short of match fitness, having not played since November due to the mid-season break in Germany. Bamford and Sinisterra made their first starts for a while after their spells out with injury, while Aaronson was dropped to the bench.

But Leeds made a nervy start to the game with little cohesion in our play, against an Accrington side who were determined to harry us for every ball. I started to worry that we might suffer from having several players on the field who wouldn’t be familiar with each other’s play and it would all get a bit disjointed.

The stats showed that in the first 20 minutes Accrington had six efforts on goal to our one, the best of them forcing Wöber to react quickly to block a shot from Whalley after Meslier had failed to deal with a long ball into the box. But our keeper was less troubled by their other efforts, with three shots from distance that were straight at him. Our early chance was a ball that came through to Rutter in space, but our debutant dragged his shot wide of the post.

So when our first goal arrived on 23 minutes it was slightly against the run of play up to that point. Kristensen went down the right and slipped it inside to Greenwood, and he in turn passed to Bamford, who spotted Harrison racing through the middle with a good chance to shoot. And he hit it superbly from 25 yards, sending it into the corner of the net and giving Savin no chance.

Though we were a little flattered to have the lead at that point, the goal settled the nerves and we began to take charge for the rest of the half. Roca had a shot deflected over the bar, and after Bamford had an optimistic shout for a penalty turned down, Sinisterra had a shot turned against the post by Savin.

We had cause to curse the fact that VAR wasn’t in action for this game when Bamford was incorrectly flagged for offside as he was sent through with only the keeper to beat, and Savin made another fingertip save as Kristensen sent a powerful shot across the face of goal. Meslier had to deal with a promising break from one of our corners, but that was the closest they came to an equaliser before the break.

All the same, my habitual FA Cup anxiety told me that we could have done with taking one of these chances to properly put this tie to bed. Sure enough, the Stanley came out for the second half looking fired up once again. But thankfully most of their chances fell to boyhood Leeds fan Harvey Rodgers, and he had the decency to put them all well wide or over the bar.

Soon normal service was resumed, with Bamford slicing a good opportunity into the side netting, and Sinisterra cutting inside and shooting just over instead of slipping the ball to Rutter, who would have had a tap-in. But finally the second goal arrived, as Firpo raced down the left and played it inside to Bamford, who swivelled and played a clever return pass, before the much-maligned Firpo beat Savin with a fine right foot finish.

Finally we started to look comfortable as Accrington heads dropped, and the third goal arrived two minutes later. A ball down the left found Harrison racing into plenty of space, and we were queuing up in the centre to get on the end of his cross. Sinisterra got to the ball ahead of Bamford and Rutter, to steer the ball past Savin into the corner of the net.

With the tie now secure Marsch made the first of his substitutions, as Sinisterra was spared from over-extending himself as Rodrigo came on. The Spaniard was denied by another fine save from Savin, as was Bamford, who would be one of a trio rested in the 76th minute, the others being Rutter and Koch. Aaronson and Llorente came on, as did Perkins, our injury-time saviour at Cardiff.

But it wouldn’t be a Leeds FA Cup performance if we hadn’t failed to keep a clean sheet, and Stanley were able to grab a consolation in the closing stages. Meslier made a fine save from Leigh, but was helpless when the ball was played back for an unchallenged Akedoya to score from close range. That just about left enough time for us to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory, but I needn’t have worried.

After Joseph came on as our final substitute and Harrison came on Leeds were able to play out four minutes of injury time with no further alarms, to secure our place in the fifth round. The draw is at 7pm on Monday night during the One show, and I can’t wait to find out which opponents I will be fretting about next.

Reuters

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