Spot-on Kenny’s heroics save Whites
By Phil Hay
There are problems at Leeds United; problems the club must seek to address when the time for investment comes.
But in all that Neil Warnock looks for in the weeks of the January transfer window, he can spare himself the effort of finding a backbone.
It is plain to see that Leeds cannot thrive on performances as embattled as those seen in the past month, and their escape from Brighton with a draw last night was no less than that.
But beneath the limitations and a one-dimensional style is a team who are infuriatingly difficult to beat. Few of their traits are more admirable or more essential while money is scarce.
Brighton should have guessed as much from the seven-match unbeaten run which preceded United’s defeat to Birmingham last Saturday but it took 90 minutes on the same pitch as Leeds to make them understand.
Twice Albion led and all night they dominated, the better of two incomparable teams. “I saw different sides out there,” said Brighton’s manager, Gus Poyet. “One played football and the other was lucky.”
Poyet’s bitter reaction was inevitable after El-Hadji Diouf and Michael Brown scored in two of the few passages of the game when Leeds made their presence felt.
He could as easily have pointed his finger at Mackail-Smith for failing to bury the night’s third penalty 16 minutes from time. Mackail-Smith’s name was on United’s list in the summer, a striker who Warnock thought seriously about signing during the last transfer window.
A lack of funds, a change of tact, or a reluctance on Albion’s part to sell – whatever the reason for a deal which never quite happened, it was clear enough why Warnock saw Mackail-Smith as a player worth chasing.
On the evidence of last night’s game in Sussex, there is more than one in Albion’s squad who would bring something useful to Elland Road.
Mackail-Smith’s brace threatened to inflict Leeds’ second league defeat in the space of a week but there was more to Brighton’s football – and more to United’s too – than merely a striker who reliably scores goals and runs opponents ragged.
Under the management of Poyet, Albion have honed a fluid style and a defence which looks largely resistant to concessions from open play.
Leeds were not flattered by the comparison and looked in danger from the earliest minutes of a third competitive match in seven days.
Mackail-Smith scored first from the penalty spot after 15 minutes and again at the start of the second half, producing the same return as he had in last season’s 3-3 draw between the clubs.
In between, El-Hadji Diouf buried a penalty at the other end of the field and Leeds fended off every attempt by Brighton to kill the game.
Brown struck on 66 minutes and Mackail-Smith lost his nerve with another penalty eight minutes later. Warnock settled happily for that.
United’s manager has been prone to frequent changes of personnel this season but for once his team picked itself, set in stone by Tuesday’s easy defeat of Southampton in the League Cup.
There were two off-field issues – Diouf rejecting a new deal earlier this week and Tom Lees learning that criminal charges were to be brought against him over the violence which dominated an England Under-21 fixture in Serbia last month – but Warnock did not contemplate dropping either player.
Lees was given his “full support” beforehand; contract talks with Diouf will resume imminently.
There has been a temptation in the past month to depict Leeds as a one-man team in which Diouf is pivotal to the point of being irreplaceable.
Warnock is loath to lose him in January and Diouf put himself forward at a critical moment last night with United’s regular penalty-taker, Luciano Becchio, named as a substitute, but it is not the only area in need of attention with the transfer window drawing closer.
Many weeks have passed since United last outplayed a Championship side and they could not pretend to have bettered Brighton as they took their leave of the south coast with a draw and a point.
Much of the game was an ordeal, suspended briefly by the goals from Diouf and Brown. The Amex Stadium tends to be Brighton’s manor, a venue where they like to dominate and play to their own rhythm, and they settled into yesterday’s match before Leeds could acclimatise. The contest was almost decided inside 25 minutes.
In the first five, Dean Hammond cut Warnock’s defence open twice and Wayne Bridge did likewise after picking the ball up inside his own half. Ashley Barnes met the full-back’s cross with a volley into the crowd and those moments of danger were symptomatic of the movement and ambition from Brighton which bothered United all night.
It did not help either that Albion were given swathes of space to work with in the middle of the pitch. Liam Bridcutt made something of it in the 15th minute, receiving a poor clearance from Jason Pearce and guiding Will Buckley into a position inside United’s box which tempted Lee Peltier to clip his heels.
Referee Lee Mason awarded a penalty and Craig Mackail-Smith converted it with all the strength in his right leg.
Warnock finds much to appreciate in Mackail-Smith’s game but the striker was a menace to him and his team.
Four minutes after the opening goal, Buckley tore past Peltier and cut the ball back to Mackail-Smith who held his balance, drove it at Paddy Kenny and forced United’s goalkeeper to brush the shot onto a post. It was crucial resistance to a strong tide against him.
Kenny could have done nothing about the chance which fell to Barnes in the 25th minute but, from a range as simple as that which befuddled Luke Varney at Elland Road on Tuesday, the forward met Bruno’s cross with a lazy finish which bounced into the ground and over the crossbar. As unhappy as he looked on the touchline, it was a bonus for Warnock to find his team still in the game.
In amongst Brighton’s chances, United’s contribution to the first half-hour was as good as nil. So too was the pressure on Tomasz Kuszczak, the Brighton keeper, until Mason stepped forward in the 35th minute to award Leeds a penalty of their own. Television replays just about justified it.
The referee penalised Bruno for obstructing Varney as the two players ran towards a loose ball and Diouf ignored much coming-and-going around him to tuck a low finish to Kuszczak’s right.
Poyet rolled his eyes as if to suggest that United were the luckiest team in town. Warnock’s sedate reaction said much the same.
Lees was lost to concussion before half-time, replaced by Danny Pugh after suffering an injury to one eye 10 minutes earlier, but United were happy to trade one piece of fortune for another. It was not enough in itself to improve their evening.
Three minutes into the second half, Orlandi threaded a pass to the ever-troublesome Buckley who lifted his head, found Mackail-Smith and stood back as his team-mate drilled a deflected shot into the net.
He hovered on a hat-trick and might have claimed one twice with an effort which Pugh scooped clear from in front of his goal and a low effort which Kenny smothered.
Again, the misses counted. Leeds began to apply themselves after the hour and Brown equalised for a second time, arriving in space to beat Kuszczak with a deflected shot from 20 yards.
It was no more a reprieve than Mackail-Smith’s 74th-minute penalty, driven weakly into Kenny’s arms after Sam Byram fouled the breathless forward, or the shot from Andrew Crofts which the keeper parried in injury-time. By the skin of their teeth, and not for the first time.