Bolton Wanderers v Leeds United: Byram shines but Davies foils Whites
By Phil Hay
On this occasion there were no tears and no scenes of devastation, at either end of the Reebok Stadium.
Leeds United left with a useful point and Bolton Wanderers side-stepped severe recriminations through a late equaliser from Kevin Davies.
Relegated from the Premiership on the same ground in 2004 – the peg on which so much of United’s recent history hangs – Leeds exorcised a ghost or two last night and almost forced Bolton to confront one of their own. No-one was more relieved by Davies’ 79th minute header than the Bolton manager, Owen Coyle.
The business of other clubs barely concerns Leeds or Neil Warnock, not while takeovers and injuries hang over them from day to day, but the scenario at the Reebok Stadium is no secret. Coyle is running out of lives after two months of unimpressive Championship results and a defeat to United would have nudged him closer to the dreaded phone call. He cannot afford many more.
Leeds, by contrast, are in the thick of a purple patch, coming within 11 minutes of a fourth straight win last night and showing enough nerve to recover from an opening half-hour which might have finished them off. This was a good time to be visiting Bolton and a bad time for Bolton to be hosting Leeds. Davies’ effort – his second of the game – came when Coyle needed it most.
Bolton’s fluency in earliest stages of the game belied the pressure they were under, and Davies’ eighth-minute goal was heaven-sent from Coyle’s perspective. But his team’s brittle backbone showed itself as a flurry of chances went begging and Sam Byram claimed an equaliser from very little a minute before half-time.
The teenage winger stole the show in Bolton, heading home an El-Hadji Diouf free-kick before winning the penalty from which Luciano Becchio gave United a 48th minute lead. The swift about-turn had the potential to prove fatal for Coyle, much as a defeat at the Reebok once was for Leeds, but his team are not yet ready to sell him out.
Byram’s performance in Bolton succeeded in outshining even Diouf, whose appearances in the shade have been few so far. Diouf is fast exhausting the supply of superlatives so Warnock found a tangible way of acknowledging his influence yesterday, naming him as captain shortly before kick-off.
The decision had an air of psychology about it, giving the easily-inspired Diouf more prominence against one of his old teams, and it is likely that club captain Lee Peltier will be asked to relinquish the armband for one night only.
For Warnock and Diouf it was like the consummation of their unlikely marriage, though the effect was minimal until Byram scored in the penultimate minute of the first half. It would have been sensational had Diouf’s curling shot in the depths of second-half injury-time not clipped the top of the bar.
Peltier made do with a run in his preferred position, moving from left-back to right-back and allowing Adam Drury to step into Warnock’s side. The player sacrificed – Aidan White – was unlucky to be dropped on the strength of an afternoon’s graft at Bristol City.
More hard running was demanded of Leeds last night, in conditions as torrential as those seen during their League Cup win over Everton seven days earlier. The rain leant a touch of unpredictability to the game, as did referee Phil Dowd whose decisions in the opening five minutes provoked Warnock’s anger to the extent that Dowd threatened to send him from the dug-out.
From any position in the ground, Bolton’s early dominance was obvious. Their slick passing on a wet and slippery surface cut Leeds open in the 12th minute, and Paddy Kenny and Jason Pearce did all they could to keep shots from Chris Eagles and Mark Davies out of United’s net. A reprieve of sorts, it held the dam for only two minutes.
Eagles forced Peltier to concede a corner with a direct run down the left wing and Kevin Davies read the resulting delivery perfectly, rising to nod a downward header past Kenny from six yards.
It is a feature of this Leeds team that for all their nous and organisation, they seem as liable to concede goals as they did last season. The saving grace is that they score as reliably. A clean sheet in the Championship has eluded them since their win over Wolverhampton Wanderers on August 18 and their evening at the Reebok Stadium threatened to end as quickly as it began.
Kenny held a low shot from Keith Andrews after United lost possession inside their own half and the goalkeeper was comprehensively beaten when Eagles’ opportunistic strike on 17 minutes clipped the outside of his post. What initially seemed like a convenient time to be playing Bolton began to feel like the evening from hell.
The blame for that was widely shared, not least by Dowd. Warnock bit his lip as free-kicks flowed in Bolton’s direction, reluctant to test the official’s sense of discipline, but Dowd’s reading of the game went only so far in explaining why Leeds were so chronically starved of possession. From the midfield which wore down Bristol City there was nothing like the same pressure.
Without it, United rode their luck. Benik Afobe made nothing of a fine chance in the 26th minute, running onto Mark Davies’ lob and chipping the ball beyond Kenny’s far post. It took the best part of half an hour for Leeds create the same sense of panic when Byram ran half the length of the field, cut around Zat Knight and curled a careful finish wide.
That moment brought as sea-change of sorts as the implications of Bolton’s near-misses hung in the air.
Had Becchio not lost control of the ball when Adam Bogdan, Bolton’s keeper, misjudged a long pass from Rodolph Austin, United might have restored parity before the final minute of the half but Bogdan was left flat-footed by the glancing header from Byram which nestled in the far corner of his net.
It stretched credibility to claim that Leeds were worth their goal.
Yet the effect of the scoreline on Bolton’s confidence was easy to imagine and they caved in two minutes into the second half when the irrepressible Byram – another feather in the cap of United’s academy – tempted Stephen Warnock to bring him down inside the box.
Dowd belatedly earned the approval of United’s huge away support by awarding a penalty and Becchio tucked it safely to Bogdan’s right.
His tidy finish sucked the air out of the stadium, leaving Coyle to fret on the touchline.
Bolton’s response was honest but riddled with angst. An attempt from Jay Spearing from the edge of the box, struck while United’s defence were stretched, found Tom Lees waiting to block it, and Knight guided a free header over on the hour.
There was time left, however, and Bolton made something of it as a spate of corners ended with Kevin Davies rising to convert another close-range header. Coyle lives to fight another day. Just.