Walsall 1  Leeds United 2

 You couldn’t say this was a great performance from Leeds, and a draw would probably have been a fair result. Jermaine Beckford spent much of the game sulking as things didn’t go his way, but it only took one great piece of finishing three minutes from time to give us the victory and preserve our 100% record. 

Despite the fact that we’d failed to sell our full allocation in advance, there was still an excellent turnout of Leeds fans for a midweek game, and a long orderly queue soon formed outside the ground for the booth that was selling tickets on the night. Walsall had given us two sides of the stadium (apparently so that we wouldn’t buy tickets amongst their fans) but there were still huge gaps in what remained of the home parts of the stadium.  

Grayson decided to go with the same starting line-up, and we made a reasonable start to the game, forcing a couple of corners in the first five minutes.  And we were close to taking the lead after a quarter of an hour, with Ince doing well to turn a Beckford header onto the post, and Snodgrass just failing to reach the rebound. But that was as good as it got during the first half, as we continued to have more of the possession, but struggled to turn it into decent chances. 

Walsall managed a few attacks of their own, but nothing that our central defensive pair couldn’t cope with. Rui in particular seemed to be making a lot of well-timed challenges, though that was to change later on! It was all getting a little bit dull, so the crowd had to make their own entertainment, and the Walsall end finally woke up when they took exception to our chant of “We’ve got more fans than you!” 

Once again Leeds stepped up the pace a bit in the second half, but we still didn’t look much like scoring. Beckford seemed to be having one of his moody evenings, having an unpleasant exchange with Snodgrass as well as putting three shots straight at Ince, and sending a shocking effort so far over the bar that it nearly cleared the top of the stand.  

He did better on 66 minutes when he flicked a clever header across goal from a Johnson cross, but it drifted just wide of the post, and it looked like it just wasn’t going to be his night. Grayson had to make a change to liven things up, and he brought Robinson on for Hughes, with Johnson dropping back, and Kilkenny for Doyle. This gave the side more balance (it helps to have a left-footed player at left back) and hopefully the boss will start with this combination on Saturday. 

But it was Walsall who took the lead with ten minutes left, rather against the run of play. For much of the game Jones had been giving Crowe a difficult time down the Walsall left, but on this occasion it was Rui who brought him down as he cut into the box, and the referee pointed to the spot. Parkin made no mistake with the spot kick, sending it high and straight as Higgs dived to his left, and it looked as if we were heading for defeat in a game we didn’t really deserve to lose. 

And last season we probably would have accepted defeat, but this time there seems to be a lot more spirit in the side, and we battled back to equalise only three minutes after going behind. A corner from Robinson eluded everyone, until Johnson came charging in and sent a powerful header past Ince into the net. Cue for some wild celebrations as Johnson was mobbed by the Leeds fans behind the goal, but that was nothing compared to the scenes a few minutes later when Beckford grabbed the winner. 

There seemed little danger when a  long ball from Rui found Beckford with his back to goal about 25 yards out, but he just turned and whacked it with his left foot and it flew into the corner of the net. That led to a mini-pitch invasion, and a bit of bother when a steward tried to eject a boy of no more than 14 (why him, rather than all the others who had run on the pitch?). As the steward tried to march the lad down the tunnel he was surrounded by a dozen or so Leeds fans who wrenched the boy out of his grasp, leaving the steward to leave on his own, clutching his bad throat! 

Leeds managed to play out the final minutes without Walsall coming close to an equaliser, and we could have scored a third on the break, but Snodgrass could only shoot into the side netting. So it’s three wins out of three in the league, when we haven’t really hit top form in any of them. But the old cliché says that the champions are the teams who win when they haven’t played well, and we’ll just have to hope that’s true.   

Photo: Action Images

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