Yorkshire Evening Post 17/7/10
Whites on an upward curve
By Phil Hay
MK Kosice 0 Leeds United 1
One defeat, one win and one goal scored; statistics that Simon Grayson would like to outdo at the start of Leeds United's domestic season but an outcome which sent him home from Slovakia with a warm glow.
This summer's exodus from Thorp Arch to Ruzomberok and Kosice will not go down as the tour when Leeds United tore through Slovakia's finest but for Grayson it comfortably served its purpose: a two-match sequence in which United's second performance bettered their first and the wheels rusted by seven weeks of inactivity began to turn once more.
Whites on an upward curve
By Phil Hay
MK Kosice 0 Leeds United 1
One defeat, one win and one goal scored; statistics that Simon Grayson would like to outdo at the start of Leeds United's domestic season but an outcome which sent him home from Slovakia with a warm glow.
This summer's exodus from Thorp Arch to Ruzomberok and Kosice will not go down as the tour when Leeds United tore through Slovakia's finest but for Grayson it comfortably served its purpose: a two-match sequence in which United's second performance bettered their first and the wheels rusted by seven weeks of inactivity began to turn once more.
United's time on the continent ended last night with a merited victory over MFK Kosice, 72 hours after an equally deserved loss to MFK Ruzomberok 200 kilometres north.
If pre-season's raison d'etre is to pull a club's squad along an upward trajectory of fitness, form and purpose, Grayson will take comfort from the fact that their second outing in Slovakia was the more acceptable of the two.
These are premature stages of his plan for the Championship but, with a curtain-raiser against Derby County no more than three weeks away, he will not be able to say that for much longer. Much as he prioritised hours of training in cruel Slovakian temperatures, it was necessary for his players to give a more convincing impression of a settled team in Kosice than they had in Ruzomberok.
Many of them had the guise of strangers in patches of Tuesday's game, as they were bound to do in an opening friendly when Grayson's team included two Slovakian trialists and several contracted professionals who had met each other less than a fortnight before.
A greater degree of organisation revealed itself in Kosice, where the players frazzled in brutal heat, and a goal was forthcoming at the start of the second half.
Those on the outside of Elland Road will look for goals this summer, the first since Jermaine Beckford's exit, with the intention of learning whether his loss has been adequately dealt with. It cannot have disappointed Grayson to see it arrive from the boot of Billy Paynter, one of those required to plug the hole.
His strike arrived on 55 minutes in a period of the game when Kosice's willingness visibly sagged. Prior to it, Leeds had held their hosts in check with a disciplined display which slowly worked Kosice into a dead-end. It is a position that the Slovakian team know well.
They are by some distance the greater of the two clubs encountered by Leeds this week yet also the lesser. The club trailed in far behind Ruzomberok at the end of the most recent Corgon Liga season and they are no longer the powerhouse who gave Slovakia its first representation in the Champions League.
Hard times have schooled the club as proficiently as Leeds in financial carnage, perhaps inevitably when their season ticket prices stoop as low as 18 Euros. Kosice's advantage last night, as Ruzomberok found on Tuesday, should have been the wind of a full pre-season in their sails.
Grayson expected Jason Crowe to miss the friendly in Kosice with a foot complaint, and a niggle affecting Lloyd Sam stymied his involvement.
With seven substitutes, Grayson’s option of using a completely different line-up in either half was taken from him.
With seven substitutes, Grayson’s option of using a completely different line-up in either half was taken from him.
Yet what materialised at kick-off was a line-up which might conceivably resemble the team used by him when the Championship’s starting gun goes off in 21 days’ time.
Neil Kilkenny and Jonathan Howson were reunited in midfield, and Neill Collins and Leigh Bromby created what is presently United’s fittest central-defensive combination. Further forward, Luciano Becchio and Davide Somma gained an opportunity to feel their way into a partnership.
It was immediately apparent Kosice lacked Ruzomberok’s calm understanding but their energy on another baking evening was beyond reproach. Peter Kavka’s early sprint over 50 yards, ending in a shot that Shane Higgs ushered into his side-netting, dismantled any hope of a gentle evening among players who have worked ceaselessly under Grayson’s scrutiny this week.
Leeds pressed whenever space behind Kosice’s midfield allowed it, and Robert Snodgrass stung Jozef Brudnek’s palms with an instinctive volley encouraged by indecisive defending. The Scot warmed to a joust with left-back Matus Conka and delivered a dipping cross which Somma headed narrowly over the bar, 22 minutes into the game.
By then, Grayson was starting to see a fluid performance, far exceeding the ponderous first half he took in on Tuesday. His defence held their shape under an examination from three forwards and his midfield stifled Kosice in a way that several League One clubs would understand. Kosice’s chances were virtually nil.
Competitive as ever, Kilkenny achieved the improbable by incurring a yellow card when the contentious award of a corner provoked irate criticism of Pavol Sipos, a referee whose reading of the game was more than a little skewed. His linesmen fared little better, a constant shackle around Somma’s ankles.
At the end of a low-key first half, Grayson made five changes, Paynter included, and left several players to toil for longer than they had in Ruzomberok. Far from running into treacle, United began to work at picking Kosice off.
Snodgrass drove a low shot against the body of Darko Tofiloski, Kosice’s substitute keeper, and Tofiloski was hopelessly exposed when a flick off the head of Bradley Johnson invited Paynter – signed on a free transfer from Swindon Town and the scorer of 29 goals last season – to bury a clinical volley.
Sipos finally made a favourable decision towards Leeds 15 minutes from the end, awarding a penalty after a collision between Tofiloski and Mike Grella but Tofiloski met Snodgrass’ set-piece with both arms.
Snodgrass looked annoyed; Grayson hardly flinched. The time for kicking every ball will be upon him soon enough.
United: Higgs (Schmeichel 46), Connolly (Hughes 46), Collins, Bromby (Lees 74), Bessone (White 46), Snodgrass, Kilkenny, Howson (Gradel 60), Johnson, Becchio (Grella 46), Somma (Paynter 46).
