Leeds can count themselves unlucky to have gone out of the Carling Cup last night after a fine battling performance against Liverpool.

Rafa Benitez decided to give most of his star players the night off, but he did take the precaution of keepng Carragher in the heart of his defence, possibly to counter the threat of Jermaine Beckford. And there were several big names on the bench, including Gerrard and Torres, just in case the tie didn’t go their way.

In contrast, Leeds fielded the strongest possible side, with the only change being to bring Lubo into the starting eleven in place of the cup-tied Brondby. And thankfully the Slovak seems to be getting back to the form he showed when he first came to the club, and he’s no longer the liability we saw in the latter days of Mc.Allister’s reign, so hopefully Grayson has done some work to get him to improve his game.  Jason Crowe had recovered from the groin strain that was troubling him on Saturday, and was able to take his place on the field.  

The game began at a lively pace, with quite a bit of pushing in both penalty areas, and a few juicy challenges going in, but referee Alan Wiley was content to let the game flow without blowing the whistle too many times.  

Leeds had the best of the early chances, with Snodgrass looking impressive down the right hand side, and in the 11^th minute the Scot produced an excellent cross for the unmarked Doyle, who should have done better than to head wide of the post. 

Then came the most controversial incident of the game, as Leeds got the ball in the net, only for the linesman to rule the goal out for offside. From a corner Lubo sent a firm header goalbound, Beckford challenged the keeper without touching the ball and Becchio knocked it over the line. Television replays showed the goal should have stood, as nether Beckford nor Becchio were in an offside position when the ball was headed on, but to be fair to the officials, it was a difficult call to make when seeing the incident once at normal speed.  

Leeds kept up the pressure, but towards the end of the half Liverpool started to threaten on the counter-attack. Babel outpaced Hughes down the Liverpool right, but couldn’t beat Higgs with the shot, and our keeper made an even better save from Rieira just before the break. But it was Liverpool’s keeper who was called into action at the start of the second half, as Beckford showed his pace by getting between two defenders to reach a long ball through the middle, but could only flick at it with the outside of his right foot, so couldn’t get any power into the shot. 

There was more controversy a few minutes later when Macherano caught Beckford with an elbow after whirling his arms around. He claimed that he was only trying to escape Beckford’s clutches, but only he will know whether he meant it or not. It could have been a red card, but Wiley chose to take no action even though he appeared to have a clear view of the incident. 

So it was galling that Macherano was involved in the build-up to the Liverpool goal, as his ball to edge of the box fell to N’Gog, who made space with a clever turn and shot under Higgs into the corner of the net.  After that Leeds seemed to fade a little and Liverpool looked like taking control, though without creating too many more outstanding chances. Kisnorbo in particular was having an excellent game in the heart of our defence, working hard to keep the scousers at bay despite all their pressure. 

The best we could manage in the closing stages was a long-range shot from Johnson that had plenty of power but was too close to Cavalieri, so the Liverpool keeper wasn’t unduly troubled. At the other end there was a disagreement between Kisnorbo and Babel after the latter was held back, but Kisnorbo thought he’d gone to ground a little too easily. The free kick was in a dangerous position, but was deflected away to safety. 

Towards the end Gerrard and Glen Johnson came on as Benitez looked to make the game safe, and Kilkenny and Grella replaced Hughes and Becchio. And Showumni was introduced in the 89^th. minute, which I really did think was having a laugh against Premier League defenders. So we didn’t manage to grab an equaliser in the four minutes injury time allowed by Alan Wiley, but we can be very proud of our performance on the night.    

Photo: Action Images

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