Leeds United v Everton: Patched up Whites’ stunning triumph
By Phil Hay
The way it is going, Neil Warnock might just fall in love with this competition. Rarely can a result have surprised him as much as last night’s victory over Everton did, on an evening when Leeds United were primed for summary elimination.
The was no chance of an upset at Elland Road, apparently; no chance at all while United’s treatment room resembled an A&E ward with no empty beds. Everton’s manager, David Moyes, felt confident enough to field a weakened team through choice but regretted that decision as soon as Aidan White scored a majestic goal in the fourth minute.
An improbable result was born there and then, inspired by an unlikely goalscorer and sealed in the second half by Rodolph Austin.
In his long and distinguished managerial career, Warnock has grown accustomed to premature exits from the League Cup, often at the hands of opponents less stellar than Everton. There are always other priorities and other ambitions to chase; league football invariably matters more.
The irony last night was that a defeat might have suited him beforehand, so far removed is the tournament from his idea of a successful season, but he looked quietly thrilled as Everton bowed to a performance which would have done Leeds justice had their line-up been anything close to full strength. In the absence of countless players, their 2-1 win was almost routine save only the last nine minutes.
United will draw in several hundred thousand pounds from last night’s third-round tie, even though the attendance at Elland Road fell a long way short of capacity, and that alone made the match worthwhile.
If that money and further cash promised from a fourth-round game funds the loan striker Warnock is anxious to sign then United’s cup run will have been worth its weight in gold.
But the 63-year-old might yet see more value in the good two wins in the space of four days have done for the mindset of Leeds as a whole.
A week ago, Warnock was worried about a club who were suffering the consequences of “feeling sorry for ourselves”.
The mood around Elland Road felt far less tender as Everton fought to stay in a competition which WLarnock tipped them to win.
Not this year, despite Sylvain Distin’s desperate header on 81 minutes and the onslaught which followed it.
Moyes held a few cards in reserve – Steven Pienaar, Nikica Jelavic, Phil Jagielka – but not a soul inside the stadium believed he would need them. This was one occasion when Warnock avoided accusations of disrespecting or neglecting the League Cup, backed instead into a tight corner by injury after injury.
“We could probably have done without tonight,” he admitted before kick-off. And he meant it.
Nothing said more about that than the appearance on the bench of Paul Rachubka, included in a squad for the first time since his club-defining implosion against Blackpool last November.
Everton were weak by their own standards but strong by those of an opposition line-up which was marginally above half-strength.
To the surprise of all, Everton trailed by the end of the fourth minute.
This has been a good week for products of United’s academy, and having watched Dominic Poleon score his first goal for the club against Nottingham Forest on Saturday, White did likewise in a fashion he will not forget.
Everton asked for trouble by losing possession in their own half and Rodolph Austin sent White running at their defence with a quick sideways pass.
Marouane Fellaini ran to meet the winger but was beaten by a brilliant side-step which gave White the space he needed to whip the ball over Jan Mucha in Everton’s goal. Elland Road had not expected that.
It gave Moyes a headache in conditions too wet to allow his players to pass Leeds off the field.
Last night was no night for football – the rain which hammered down throughout the day continued to fall from the first whistle to the last – but it was an opportunity for two of the clubs best served by Gary Speed to remember the late Welshman as the game took on an unlikely shape.
Speed was honoured with great affection by Leeds following his death in November and a video montage of his career played out on Elland Road’s big screen before last night’s match.
An 11-minute chant in Speed’s memory began on schedule in the 11th minute as it had during United’s league game at Nottingham Forest two days after he died.
Gone but not forgotten in this part of Yorkshire or Merseyside.
It was the club who Speed left in 1996 who found more to savour in the occasion of a first meeting between Leeds and Everton for eight years.
The opening half disappeared in a blur without throwing Everton a bone. They clung to moments so fleeting as a clearance from Jamie Ashdown which struck Victor Anichebe in a delicate area and trickled behind before the striker could cause any trouble.
Leeds did to Moyes’ team what they had done to Forest on Saturday: squeezed their midfield and stuck tight to the players most likely to hurt them. Fellaini became trapped behind the halfway line, sweeping up as much possession as he could but wasted in the circumstances. Moyes ventured into his technical area after 20 minutes but retreated soon after having seen nothing to please him.
A brief flicker was evident when Bryan Oviedo danced past Sam Byram and drove a cross to the feet of Anichebe, arriving too rapidly to guide a volley beneath Ashdown’s crossbar, but that was the sum of their effort before half-time.
Leeds, meanwhile, worried Mucha again when a spell of intricate passing ended with Becchio laying the ball off to White 12 yards out. Mucha’s safe hands ensured that White’s goals were not quite like buses.
Steven Naismith offered the same protection in first half injury-time, hacking the ball off Everton’s line when Becchio headed El-Hadji Diouf’s cross against the outstretched arm of Mucha. Without that combined clearance Everton might well have been sunk. Diouf was their chief tormentor, an ex-Liverpool player in his element.
The second half brought the introduction of Pienaar and Phil Neville and with them came a spurt of impetus towards Ashdown’s goal.
With an uncharacteristic lack of composure, Pienaar whipped a shot over the bar from the edge of the box and Naismith header a gift of a header wide.
Anichebe was more unlucky when he turned and dragged the ball a foot beyond Ashdown’s far post on the hour. They were pivotal moments that Everton made nothing of.
Soon after, the call went out to Jelavic as Moyes played a full hand. The striker took the field in the middle of a siege on his own goal and before he could touch the ball, Diouf played a free-kick to Danny Pugh whose loose strike clipped Austin’s leg and flew into the net, taking Everton’s scalp with 22 minutes to play.
Distin made it interesting by converting Anichebe’s flick-on but the fightback went no further. Leeds had come too far by then.