Yorkshire Evening Post 11/8/09
It's job done says Leeds boss Simon Grayson
Simon Grayson declared his pre-match aim accomplished after Leeds United edged into the second round of the Carling Cup with a tight victory over Darlington.
A second-half goal from striker Enoch Showunmi earned Leeds a 1-0 victory at the Darlington Arena last night and Grayson was pleased to see his squad avoid the humiliation of becoming the competition's first significant scalp.
United made hard work of eliminating a League Two club who were in administration until the end of last week, finally taking control of the first-round tie through Showunmi's 54th-minute strike, but Leeds' manager admitted his only priority was safely negotiating a fixture he knew his players were expected to win.
Grayson said: "I'm just delighted to get through. The game was a potential banana skin for us.
"There are always going to be teams in this competition who are scalps for others and everybody wants a scalp, but we didn't to start that process off this season.
"We put in a professional performance – not an ideal one – and it was a winning performance.
"We needed to be a bit more ruthless around the penalty box but the sharpness will come with games as the players' confidence grows.
"I still think a lot of them are finding their feet fitness-wise, but a win's a win and that's the only way we'll look at it."
Leeds reached the fourth round of the tournament last season, and they are the first club to enter the draw for the next stage of this year's competition after their televised tie at Darlington was staged 24 hours ahead of the remaining first-round fixtures.
Bench
Showunmi's toe-poked finish was enough to separate the sides, and it continued the striker's positive progress from the blood clot he suffered on one of his lungs last year. The goal is his first in competitive play since the illness was diagnosed in December.
The former Bristol City player started last night's fixture alongside American forward Mike Grella after injuries to first-choice strikers Jermaine Beckford and Luciano Becchio forced Grayson to omit the former and name the latter on the bench.
"The two lads who started did well and we have to take the chance to look at different options," said Grayson.
"I'm pleased that Enoch got his goal because certain players and strikers in particular thrive on confidence and goals. He's certainly one of them.
"Mike had opportunities to score a few times and they both contributed to the game. They needed to get some competitive football under their belts and they looked lively in the second half. They could both have had a couple of goals."
Beckford was carrying a knee injury sustained in Saturday's 2-1 victory over Exeter City at Elland Road, and though Grayson had initially planned to involve him at Darlington, the forward failed a fitness test yesterday morning.
The realisation that Beckford had not made the journey to County Durham sparked immediate rumours that United were looking to avoid cup-tying a striker whose signature is interesting a number of high-profile clubs, but Grayson was quick to quash the claims and insisted the forward would have been included had he been given an extra 24 hours to recover.
United's boss said: "He fell on his knee at the weekend and failed a fitness test (yesterday morning).
"Contrary to speculation, it wasn't anything to do with him getting cup tied. He is injured, and Luciano had a slight knock on his calf and ankle so we decided to leave him on the bench.
"Jermaine's absence was picked up on within 30 seconds of us getting to the ground, but anyone can speculate.
"I've said all along that Jemaine Beckford isn't going anywhere and he'll be here at the end of the season. He isn't leaving the club, that's for sure.
"He was sore yesterday morning but if the game had been tonight then he would have been available."
Yorkshire Evening Post 11/8/09
Enoch Showunmi prods Leeds into Carling Cup second round
By Phil Hay
Darlington 0 Leeds United 1
From the outset, a Carling Cup first-round tie involving Darlington and Leeds United had the makings of a plum draw for both participants.
At a stage of the competition where financial incentives are difficult to find and high-profile opposition is generally lacking, Leeds could not have asked for a more satisfactory fixture than that which took them to a League Two club whose footballing strategy is a secondary issue behind the matter of their very existence.
Darlington were in administration until Friday of last week, a crisis borne out by their meagre squad of only 18 players, and though a tie with Leeds was not the easiest avenue to a respectable run in the Carling Cup, it came with the promise of a reasonable crowd and priceless revenue paid as a result of Sky Sports' decision to televise the match.
United's concern in County Durham was progress to the second round, preferably inside 90 minutes. Through a goal from Enoch Showunmi, that much was achieved. For Darlington, the 1-0 defeat they suffered should be pragmatically registered as the outcome of a match which, in different circumstances, the club might not have been around to stage.
Encouraging
Simon Grayson would have appreciated smoother passage at the Darlington Arena, where his side's performance erred on the side of forgettable until Showunmi scored the game's only goal nine minutes into the second half. United's victory was a case of substance over style on an evening of no frills and no little mediocrity.
Leeds toiled before half-time without encouraging Darlington to envisage an upset, and it took Showunmi's close-range toe-poke to give Grayson's players the imagination to properly express themselves. It was, in the end, a simple matter of qualification.
Darlington's close-season did little to support their own prospects, or to support their season in general, and the club's manager, Colin Todd, must have looked on enviously at Grayson's squad which, while undeniably below full strength, was far removed from the makeshift pool that Todd has patiently drawn together. The odds were heaped against Darlington, and the house duly won.
Despite that, Grayson's build-up was not exactly perfect. It was established on Saturday that United's boss would be without three of the defenders selected against Exeter City, but a knee injury subsequently accounted for Jermaine Beckford who failed a fitness test on the morning of the game.
Beckford's omission – an inevitable prompt for speculative transfer talk – weakened Leeds' attack, though not so much that Grayson was dissuaded from naming Luciano Becchio on the bench, favouring instead the largely unproven partnership of Showunmi and Mike Grella. Grayson had taken only one previous opportunity to view that combination during last month's pre-season friendly at Burnley, and it took a some time to click last night. For most of a sub-standard first half, the two forwards made hard work of making Darlington sweat.
United saw enough possession to properly examine their opposition, but an initial half-hour of disjointed football was characterised by their failure to ask questions of 22-year-old goalkeeper David Knight and a general misunderstanding between Grayson's midfield and his two strikers.
Knight was untroubled until the 28th minute when a Robert Snodgrass corner dropped to Michael Doyle at the edge of Darlington's box. Doyle, United's loanee from Coventry City, struck the ball with a fierce volley, forcing Knight to spill his shot, but Showunmi and Bradley Johnson failed to divert the bouncing ball into the net.
Otherwise, half-chances for Snodgrass and Paul Huntington were all that Grayson had to ponder – Huntington's header from Johnson's corner was a better opportunity than it seemed, though one which came at the centre-back quickly – but consolation was found in the absence of many problems at the other end of the field.
A misguided header from Lee Thorpe was all that Darlington's commendable energy could muster until Thorpe broke away from United's defence 10 minutes before half-time, playing in Jamie Chandler for a shot which bounced against Huntington's legs before it could reach Shane Higgs.
All the same, the half-time whistle instilled the feeling that the tie had suffered from a painfully false start.
Much of Leeds' possession before the interval had flown through Johnson on the left wing, but their inability to pick open Darlington's defence called for a change of strategy. Grayson stopped short of pulling players from the fray but might well have been tempted.
That clemency appeared to register with his players, who took a tighter grasp on the early minutes of the second half than they had on any stage of the first, improved by Snodgrass' drift away from the confines of the right wing. Johnson could not have asked for a better chance than that presented to him by Grella, whose skill tied the right side of Darlington's defence in knots, but Johnson's shot from inside the box shook the crossbar. Howson met the rebound with a low shot which Knight stopped well at the base of his right-hand post.
That narrow escape in the 51st minute was a to prove a worthless reprieve for Darlington. Three minutes later, Grella cut into more space in front of Knight and slipped the ball out wide to Snodgrass, whose delicate cross was met by a glancing toe-poke from Showunmi. Knight's decision to commit himself to the delivery left his net vacant as the ball bounced over the line. The goal was a landmark for Showunmi, whose previous strike in a competitive came before the health problems that gripped him last season, but he was on the periphery of much of the match and is still to prove himself as a water-tight replacement for either Beckford or Becchio.
Showunmi was teed up perfectly by Howson in the 65th minute but skewed a horrible finish wide of Knight's net, his last act before Grayson called upon Becchio to replace him.United's manager carried a more relaxed air by then, confident that his opposite number lacked the tools to dismantle his team's slender lead.
Todd's final ploy was to introduce an ageing Dean Windass, one of the few recognisable faces on his bench, and the striker's presence inside the six-yard box as Gary Smith's injury-time corner flashed across goal might easily have provided his moment of glory against a club he was linked with persistently last season.
Darlington, it seems, are not quite ready for fairytales.
It's job done says Leeds boss Simon Grayson
Simon Grayson declared his pre-match aim accomplished after Leeds United edged into the second round of the Carling Cup with a tight victory over Darlington.
A second-half goal from striker Enoch Showunmi earned Leeds a 1-0 victory at the Darlington Arena last night and Grayson was pleased to see his squad avoid the humiliation of becoming the competition's first significant scalp.
United made hard work of eliminating a League Two club who were in administration until the end of last week, finally taking control of the first-round tie through Showunmi's 54th-minute strike, but Leeds' manager admitted his only priority was safely negotiating a fixture he knew his players were expected to win.
Grayson said: "I'm just delighted to get through. The game was a potential banana skin for us.
"There are always going to be teams in this competition who are scalps for others and everybody wants a scalp, but we didn't to start that process off this season.
"We put in a professional performance – not an ideal one – and it was a winning performance.
"We needed to be a bit more ruthless around the penalty box but the sharpness will come with games as the players' confidence grows.
"I still think a lot of them are finding their feet fitness-wise, but a win's a win and that's the only way we'll look at it."
Leeds reached the fourth round of the tournament last season, and they are the first club to enter the draw for the next stage of this year's competition after their televised tie at Darlington was staged 24 hours ahead of the remaining first-round fixtures.
Bench
Showunmi's toe-poked finish was enough to separate the sides, and it continued the striker's positive progress from the blood clot he suffered on one of his lungs last year. The goal is his first in competitive play since the illness was diagnosed in December.
The former Bristol City player started last night's fixture alongside American forward Mike Grella after injuries to first-choice strikers Jermaine Beckford and Luciano Becchio forced Grayson to omit the former and name the latter on the bench.
"The two lads who started did well and we have to take the chance to look at different options," said Grayson.
"I'm pleased that Enoch got his goal because certain players and strikers in particular thrive on confidence and goals. He's certainly one of them.
"Mike had opportunities to score a few times and they both contributed to the game. They needed to get some competitive football under their belts and they looked lively in the second half. They could both have had a couple of goals."
Beckford was carrying a knee injury sustained in Saturday's 2-1 victory over Exeter City at Elland Road, and though Grayson had initially planned to involve him at Darlington, the forward failed a fitness test yesterday morning.
The realisation that Beckford had not made the journey to County Durham sparked immediate rumours that United were looking to avoid cup-tying a striker whose signature is interesting a number of high-profile clubs, but Grayson was quick to quash the claims and insisted the forward would have been included had he been given an extra 24 hours to recover.
United's boss said: "He fell on his knee at the weekend and failed a fitness test (yesterday morning).
"Contrary to speculation, it wasn't anything to do with him getting cup tied. He is injured, and Luciano had a slight knock on his calf and ankle so we decided to leave him on the bench.
"Jermaine's absence was picked up on within 30 seconds of us getting to the ground, but anyone can speculate.
"I've said all along that Jemaine Beckford isn't going anywhere and he'll be here at the end of the season. He isn't leaving the club, that's for sure.
"He was sore yesterday morning but if the game had been tonight then he would have been available."
Yorkshire Evening Post 11/8/09
Enoch Showunmi prods Leeds into Carling Cup second round
By Phil Hay
Darlington 0 Leeds United 1
From the outset, a Carling Cup first-round tie involving Darlington and Leeds United had the makings of a plum draw for both participants.
At a stage of the competition where financial incentives are difficult to find and high-profile opposition is generally lacking, Leeds could not have asked for a more satisfactory fixture than that which took them to a League Two club whose footballing strategy is a secondary issue behind the matter of their very existence.
Darlington were in administration until Friday of last week, a crisis borne out by their meagre squad of only 18 players, and though a tie with Leeds was not the easiest avenue to a respectable run in the Carling Cup, it came with the promise of a reasonable crowd and priceless revenue paid as a result of Sky Sports' decision to televise the match.
United's concern in County Durham was progress to the second round, preferably inside 90 minutes. Through a goal from Enoch Showunmi, that much was achieved. For Darlington, the 1-0 defeat they suffered should be pragmatically registered as the outcome of a match which, in different circumstances, the club might not have been around to stage.
Encouraging
Simon Grayson would have appreciated smoother passage at the Darlington Arena, where his side's performance erred on the side of forgettable until Showunmi scored the game's only goal nine minutes into the second half. United's victory was a case of substance over style on an evening of no frills and no little mediocrity.
Leeds toiled before half-time without encouraging Darlington to envisage an upset, and it took Showunmi's close-range toe-poke to give Grayson's players the imagination to properly express themselves. It was, in the end, a simple matter of qualification.
Darlington's close-season did little to support their own prospects, or to support their season in general, and the club's manager, Colin Todd, must have looked on enviously at Grayson's squad which, while undeniably below full strength, was far removed from the makeshift pool that Todd has patiently drawn together. The odds were heaped against Darlington, and the house duly won.
Despite that, Grayson's build-up was not exactly perfect. It was established on Saturday that United's boss would be without three of the defenders selected against Exeter City, but a knee injury subsequently accounted for Jermaine Beckford who failed a fitness test on the morning of the game.
Beckford's omission – an inevitable prompt for speculative transfer talk – weakened Leeds' attack, though not so much that Grayson was dissuaded from naming Luciano Becchio on the bench, favouring instead the largely unproven partnership of Showunmi and Mike Grella. Grayson had taken only one previous opportunity to view that combination during last month's pre-season friendly at Burnley, and it took a some time to click last night. For most of a sub-standard first half, the two forwards made hard work of making Darlington sweat.
United saw enough possession to properly examine their opposition, but an initial half-hour of disjointed football was characterised by their failure to ask questions of 22-year-old goalkeeper David Knight and a general misunderstanding between Grayson's midfield and his two strikers.
Knight was untroubled until the 28th minute when a Robert Snodgrass corner dropped to Michael Doyle at the edge of Darlington's box. Doyle, United's loanee from Coventry City, struck the ball with a fierce volley, forcing Knight to spill his shot, but Showunmi and Bradley Johnson failed to divert the bouncing ball into the net.
Otherwise, half-chances for Snodgrass and Paul Huntington were all that Grayson had to ponder – Huntington's header from Johnson's corner was a better opportunity than it seemed, though one which came at the centre-back quickly – but consolation was found in the absence of many problems at the other end of the field.
A misguided header from Lee Thorpe was all that Darlington's commendable energy could muster until Thorpe broke away from United's defence 10 minutes before half-time, playing in Jamie Chandler for a shot which bounced against Huntington's legs before it could reach Shane Higgs.
All the same, the half-time whistle instilled the feeling that the tie had suffered from a painfully false start.
Much of Leeds' possession before the interval had flown through Johnson on the left wing, but their inability to pick open Darlington's defence called for a change of strategy. Grayson stopped short of pulling players from the fray but might well have been tempted.
That clemency appeared to register with his players, who took a tighter grasp on the early minutes of the second half than they had on any stage of the first, improved by Snodgrass' drift away from the confines of the right wing. Johnson could not have asked for a better chance than that presented to him by Grella, whose skill tied the right side of Darlington's defence in knots, but Johnson's shot from inside the box shook the crossbar. Howson met the rebound with a low shot which Knight stopped well at the base of his right-hand post.
That narrow escape in the 51st minute was a to prove a worthless reprieve for Darlington. Three minutes later, Grella cut into more space in front of Knight and slipped the ball out wide to Snodgrass, whose delicate cross was met by a glancing toe-poke from Showunmi. Knight's decision to commit himself to the delivery left his net vacant as the ball bounced over the line. The goal was a landmark for Showunmi, whose previous strike in a competitive came before the health problems that gripped him last season, but he was on the periphery of much of the match and is still to prove himself as a water-tight replacement for either Beckford or Becchio.
Showunmi was teed up perfectly by Howson in the 65th minute but skewed a horrible finish wide of Knight's net, his last act before Grayson called upon Becchio to replace him.United's manager carried a more relaxed air by then, confident that his opposite number lacked the tools to dismantle his team's slender lead.
Todd's final ploy was to introduce an ageing Dean Windass, one of the few recognisable faces on his bench, and the striker's presence inside the six-yard box as Gary Smith's injury-time corner flashed across goal might easily have provided his moment of glory against a club he was linked with persistently last season.
Darlington, it seems, are not quite ready for fairytales.
