Walsall 1 Leeds United 1
At one stage I thought I might not even make it to Walsall for this game. While the Leeds fans were singing a few ditties on the local train from New Street, a woman complained that the f word in one of the songs was upsetting the women, children and ‘normal’ passengers on the train. This led to a copper informing us that if we carried on we would be turfed off the train, as our swearing was “not big or clever”, so bizzarely we spent the rest of the journey singing Christmas carols!
As expected, there was only one change from last week, with the suspended Kandol being replaced by Constantine, who was given the opportunity to make his first start for Leeds in a league game. As ever Leeds were backed by a great away following, as we had the whole of one end, plus half of one of the stands down the side, but unfortunately the response from the team was rather disappointing.
The game was very scrappy from the start, and in the absence of Carole we had no width, with the game plan consisting of banging long balls up to the front two. And although Constantine is a very big man he seemed reluctant to play the Kandol role of knocking headers down for Beckford, and played in quite a deep role, often leaving Beckford isolated up front. So we made very few clear cut chances, and I was beginning to think that I wouldn’t have missed anything even if the Leeds fans had all been thrown off the train.
But Walsall’s very big striker was even worse, the hapless Ricketts who entertained us with a hopeless shot that was so far wide he even had the referee laughing at him! “Ricketts for England” was the sarcastic response from the Leeds end. Unfortunately his strike partner, the veteran Mooney, was far livelier throughout the game, and deserved his ‘man of the match’ award from the sponsors. Mooney had the ball in the net after eight minutes after a fine lob from Bradley came back off the bar, but he was denied by a linesman who flagged him offside.
Leeds has plenty of possession throughout the half, but our only decent effort was a fierce shot from Hughes after a corner was cleared to him outside the area, which may well have been on target before being blocked by a defender. Throughout half time the Leeds end kept up a brilliant ‘WACCOE’, with quite a few fans taking their shirts off despite the freezing temperatures. Not me, but when it comes to matches next spring I might consider taking my coat off at half time.
In the second half we had more of the same, with Leeds still offering little up front and Walsall looking the more dangerous of the two sides, as Casper was forced into a fine save by Sonko. With 20 minutes left the ineffectual Constantine was replaced by Flo in the hope of improving our strike force, but it was the home side who took the lead with 15 minutes left. A corner was swung into the box and Westlake got in front of one of their forwards but inadvertently knocked the ball goalwards. Although Casper spared his blushes with a save, our keeper was left helpless when Mooney pounced to knock the ball in.
But at least Westlake was to apply another telling deflection at the right end a few minutes later. Wise replaced Kishishev and Prutton with Howson and Thompson, but our chance of saving the game seemed to have gone when Beckford could only shoot straight at Ince from 10 yards. Yet salvation finally came as we moved into the last minute of normal time and Howson was fouled thirty yards out. Thompson struck the free kick well, but it was a deflection off Westlake that left the keeper stranded as he went the wrong way.
Three minutes injury time followed, all too literally for Douglas as the home side went after a late winner and he flung himself in the way of a Walsall player who was lining up a shot. It looked serious, the way the players surrounded him and waved for the Physio to come on. He was carried off in great pain, and we await the verdict as to how bad the injury is and how long he will be out for.
With all the substitutes used we were left with ten men and decided to play out time and accept the point. Back in the pub after the game most Leeds fans were moaning about how badly we’d played, but at least we were away from home against a side who had shown some very good recent form. However, our away results are starting to cause a bit of concern, so we will have to do better on those difficult holiday trips to Harlepool and Swansea.