Blackpool v Leeds United: Tangerines sink the Whites
Yorkshire Evening Post 22/8/12
By Phil Hay
It would have been some statement of intent: two wins from two games against clubs who are ranked in the highest bracket of Championship class.
Neil Warnock visualised that scenario for more than an hour at Blackpool as Leeds United slogged towards a victory that would have been everything their defeat of Wolverhampton Wanderers was not: nervous, unconvincing and against the run of the entire match.
But United’s manager is savvy enough to know the likely repercussions of an onslaught and with three points in their grasp at Bloomfield Road, Leeds succumbed to two goals which came in the final 15 minutes but had been in the offing for so much longer.
Blackpool chipped away desperately at Tom Lees’ 16th-minute header, striking a post and meeting two rigid obstacles in United goalkeeper Paddy Kenny and referee Dean Whitestone before substitutes Nouha Dicko and Matt Phillips made the most of the 25 minutes they were given by Ian Holloway.
Dicko struck first, scoring from a range that even the impressive Kenny could not deal with and Phillips settled an absorbing game 10 minutes from time with a similarly easy finish.
It was late, the fightback, but not at all undeserved; the likely result of ceaseless pressure.
On another evening, as the saying goes, Blackpool would have beaten Leeds at a canter but so much conspired against them, not least the prolonged durability of Warnock’s team. Kenny, United’s £400,000 signing from Queens Park Rangers, stood up to a barrage as Warnock knows he can and Leeds looked to have drawn the sting from Blackpool at the very moment when Dicko struck.
On reflection, it was asking too much to allow Holloway’s side as much of the game as they had last night. Organised resistance was one of the pillars of Warnock’s strategy for this season but that did not equate to hanging on as desperately as Leeds did at Bloomfield Road.
The battle lines were drawn in the earliest minutes and Blackpool were free to attack at will, throwing their weight against an altered Leeds team. A solitary change to Leeds’ line-up was called for after the loss of Paul Green to a knee injury on Saturday.
Certain like-for-like replacements presented themselves to Warnock – none more obvious than the mercurial and increasingly popular El-Hadji Diouf – but United’s manager took a different tack, naming Lees at centre-back, moving Lee Peltier to the left side of defence and using Aidan White to replace Green on the right wing.
Warnock experimented with White in that position towards the end of last season and did so again in the earliest stages of this summer, insistent that the left-footed 20-year-old could thrive in a role which no other domestic manager had previously given to him. Only with the Republic of Ireland’s Under-21s has White been seen as a prospective right winger.
Blackpool were exposed to his pace inside five minutes as a counter-attack from the halfway line ended with Ross McCormack scuffing a shot off his shin but Warnock’s side were forced to play on the break in the first half and sometimes not at all. Blackpool ran the contest and constantly threatened an avalanche of goals. As early as the third minute, Neal Eardley threatened Kenny with a shot which struck the foot of Peltier, and Kenny entered the fray properly by diving to parry a low effort from Tiago Gomes after Kevin Phillips and Stephen Crainey worked the ball around United’s defence.
As worrying for Warnock was the raised foot from Lees which caught Gary Taylor-Fletcher on the ankle and brought an early booking from Whitestone amid a brief scuffle.
The official’s haste in pulling out a card initially suggested that the centre-back’s punishment would be more severe.
But as Blackpool drew breath after Gomes’ chance on 15 minutes, White appeared on the byline and forced Eardley to concede a corner under pressure from Luke Varney. When McCormack swung the set-piece into the six-yard box, Gilks stood still as his defence froze and Lees planted a header into the net.
The goal came against the run of what play there had been and United’s night got no worse initially. Whitestone was backed against a wall three minutes later when Varney appeared to clip Tom Ince’s heels inside Kenny’s box but he soaked up a wall of noise from Blackpool’s crowd and gave nothing, other than the benefit of the doubt to Varney.
Leeds’ clean sheet held again when Kevin Phillips anticipated a through-ball, ran straight at Kenny and stabbed an unusually cagey finish into the keeper’s arms. After Lees’ escaped with a strong appeal of handball against him, again inside United’s penalty area, Kenny intervened once more to stifle Alex Baptiste’s close-range shot with a brilliant save on his goalline.
In all, the half belonged to Blackpool in every respect except the scoreline. Stephen Crainey’s firm strike from outside the box carried narrowly over Kenny’s bar 10 minutes before the break and Ince whipped the ball wide after Crainey fed a pass behind United’s right-back, Sam Byram.
When Ince’s chance came again moments later, he drove a loose effort over the bar. The accuracy of Blackpool’s finishing was akin to dropping a garden hose.
Ince deserved no criticism at all when he outwitted Kenny at the start of the second half, striking a post with all the power in his foot and watching with bemusement as the ball ran along the line and out for a corner. Reluctant to accept another 45 minutes of pressure, Warnock waited a short while before replacing McCormack with Diouf in a repeat of the substitution which did much to see off Wolves at Elland Road.
But Blackpool’s came again in the 75th minute and when Crainey wandered into space six yards from goal, his cut-back gave Dicko an invitation he could not refuse. With Kenny sprawled on the turf, Dicko rolled the ball into an empty net. It was all the encouragement Hollway’s players needed and Leeds cracked again 10 minutes from time as Ince picked out Matt Phillips and Blackpool’s other substitute slipped a low finish inside Kenny’s far post. For all the time they took to arrive, the goals had been coming – even as Leeds and Warnock prayed they would not.
By Phil Hay
It would have been some statement of intent: two wins from two games against clubs who are ranked in the highest bracket of Championship class.
Neil Warnock visualised that scenario for more than an hour at Blackpool as Leeds United slogged towards a victory that would have been everything their defeat of Wolverhampton Wanderers was not: nervous, unconvincing and against the run of the entire match.
But United’s manager is savvy enough to know the likely repercussions of an onslaught and with three points in their grasp at Bloomfield Road, Leeds succumbed to two goals which came in the final 15 minutes but had been in the offing for so much longer.
Blackpool chipped away desperately at Tom Lees’ 16th-minute header, striking a post and meeting two rigid obstacles in United goalkeeper Paddy Kenny and referee Dean Whitestone before substitutes Nouha Dicko and Matt Phillips made the most of the 25 minutes they were given by Ian Holloway.
Dicko struck first, scoring from a range that even the impressive Kenny could not deal with and Phillips settled an absorbing game 10 minutes from time with a similarly easy finish.
It was late, the fightback, but not at all undeserved; the likely result of ceaseless pressure.
On another evening, as the saying goes, Blackpool would have beaten Leeds at a canter but so much conspired against them, not least the prolonged durability of Warnock’s team. Kenny, United’s £400,000 signing from Queens Park Rangers, stood up to a barrage as Warnock knows he can and Leeds looked to have drawn the sting from Blackpool at the very moment when Dicko struck.
On reflection, it was asking too much to allow Holloway’s side as much of the game as they had last night. Organised resistance was one of the pillars of Warnock’s strategy for this season but that did not equate to hanging on as desperately as Leeds did at Bloomfield Road.
The battle lines were drawn in the earliest minutes and Blackpool were free to attack at will, throwing their weight against an altered Leeds team. A solitary change to Leeds’ line-up was called for after the loss of Paul Green to a knee injury on Saturday.
Certain like-for-like replacements presented themselves to Warnock – none more obvious than the mercurial and increasingly popular El-Hadji Diouf – but United’s manager took a different tack, naming Lees at centre-back, moving Lee Peltier to the left side of defence and using Aidan White to replace Green on the right wing.
Warnock experimented with White in that position towards the end of last season and did so again in the earliest stages of this summer, insistent that the left-footed 20-year-old could thrive in a role which no other domestic manager had previously given to him. Only with the Republic of Ireland’s Under-21s has White been seen as a prospective right winger.
Blackpool were exposed to his pace inside five minutes as a counter-attack from the halfway line ended with Ross McCormack scuffing a shot off his shin but Warnock’s side were forced to play on the break in the first half and sometimes not at all. Blackpool ran the contest and constantly threatened an avalanche of goals. As early as the third minute, Neal Eardley threatened Kenny with a shot which struck the foot of Peltier, and Kenny entered the fray properly by diving to parry a low effort from Tiago Gomes after Kevin Phillips and Stephen Crainey worked the ball around United’s defence.
As worrying for Warnock was the raised foot from Lees which caught Gary Taylor-Fletcher on the ankle and brought an early booking from Whitestone amid a brief scuffle.
The official’s haste in pulling out a card initially suggested that the centre-back’s punishment would be more severe.
But as Blackpool drew breath after Gomes’ chance on 15 minutes, White appeared on the byline and forced Eardley to concede a corner under pressure from Luke Varney. When McCormack swung the set-piece into the six-yard box, Gilks stood still as his defence froze and Lees planted a header into the net.
The goal came against the run of what play there had been and United’s night got no worse initially. Whitestone was backed against a wall three minutes later when Varney appeared to clip Tom Ince’s heels inside Kenny’s box but he soaked up a wall of noise from Blackpool’s crowd and gave nothing, other than the benefit of the doubt to Varney.
Leeds’ clean sheet held again when Kevin Phillips anticipated a through-ball, ran straight at Kenny and stabbed an unusually cagey finish into the keeper’s arms. After Lees’ escaped with a strong appeal of handball against him, again inside United’s penalty area, Kenny intervened once more to stifle Alex Baptiste’s close-range shot with a brilliant save on his goalline.
In all, the half belonged to Blackpool in every respect except the scoreline. Stephen Crainey’s firm strike from outside the box carried narrowly over Kenny’s bar 10 minutes before the break and Ince whipped the ball wide after Crainey fed a pass behind United’s right-back, Sam Byram.
When Ince’s chance came again moments later, he drove a loose effort over the bar. The accuracy of Blackpool’s finishing was akin to dropping a garden hose.
Ince deserved no criticism at all when he outwitted Kenny at the start of the second half, striking a post with all the power in his foot and watching with bemusement as the ball ran along the line and out for a corner. Reluctant to accept another 45 minutes of pressure, Warnock waited a short while before replacing McCormack with Diouf in a repeat of the substitution which did much to see off Wolves at Elland Road.
But Blackpool’s came again in the 75th minute and when Crainey wandered into space six yards from goal, his cut-back gave Dicko an invitation he could not refuse. With Kenny sprawled on the turf, Dicko rolled the ball into an empty net. It was all the encouragement Hollway’s players needed and Leeds cracked again 10 minutes from time as Ince picked out Matt Phillips and Blackpool’s other substitute slipped a low finish inside Kenny’s far post. For all the time they took to arrive, the goals had been coming – even as Leeds and Warnock prayed they would not.