Leeds United unable to back up wins over Liverpool and Bournemouth with Cup victory at Wolves - Yorkshire Post 9/11/22
Leeds United’s mini revival was checked by Boubacar Traore’s late winner as Wolverhampton Wanderers progressed to the last 16 of the Carabao Cup.
By Nick Mashiter
The substitute struck with five minutes left to down
much-changed Leeds and seal a 1-0 victory for the hosts.
It settled an uneventful game which looked to be heading to
penalties and gave new Wolves boss Julen Lopetegui and his coaches food for
thought.
Lopetegui is due at the club’s Compton training base on
Friday, ahead of watching Saturday’s visit of Arsenal, before officially taking
charge on Monday.
Leeds boss Jesse Marsch made 10 changes, with only Harrison
surviving from the 4-3 win over Bournemouth, and assistant Rene Maric defended
the selection.
He said: “We thought the group we put on the pitch played a
very good game. The performance from the young guys was very good. We know we
have a really good squad and talented players who need these steps to develop.
“In the last weeks, we’ve had very intense games. Players
who are not as fresh as the group we put out might not have been as good. I
have no regrets.
“We are obviously disappointed because I thought we could
have won. We had a really good start and had chances all over the game which we
didn’t take.”
Confident Leeds – buoyed by successive Premier League wins –
went at their hosts and Matija Sarkic beat away Jack Harrison’s deflected
free-kick before parrying Leo Hjelde’s header.
The visitors threatened to overrun Wolves but the hosts rode
out the storm to regain some composure, with Ruben Neves curling a free-kick
wide and Adama Traore drilling across goal.
From then, though, the excitement levels died down with
neither team able to pin down an advantage as the game cried out for some
quality. It was too scrappy to maintain any kind of momentum and a subdued
Molineux needed to be patient.
Max Kilman was comfortably denied by Joel Robles soon after
the re-start and better was to come from the former Everton goalkeeper when he
kept Connor Ronan’s improvised effort out.
Adama Traore began to at least stretch Leeds but could not
find any end product.
That has been Wolves’ problem all season. They sit second
bottom of the Premier League having scored just eight times and their ideas
looked to have dried up.
Harrison curled wide for Leeds but Boubacar Traore pulled
out a stunning winner from nowhere with five minutes left.
Nathan Collins won the ball on the right and fed Daniel
Podence who found the substitute to crash in a fine strike.
