Leeds United 3 Wolverhampton Wanderers 0: Mission almost accomplished as flying start sees Whites to victory — Yorkshire Post 18/4/26
By Stuart Rayner
For 20 minutes Leeds United put on a show force before
sleepwalking through more than 70 minutes of football.
After such a promising start, their 3-0 win was not a
classic and the Whites' mission this season is not quite accomplished, but it
is pretty close to.
Victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers opened up a nine-point
gap to Tottenham Hotspur and six to Nottingham Forest before the rest of the
relegation-threatened teams took to the field.
But what is about the Whites and 2-0 leads?
For three games running they have made work of getting over
the line from there, but for three games running they have and that is all that
really matters. And this time they did actually score that decisive third, just
not until stoppage time.
Early on it looked like they might run up a cricket score in
something approaching cricket weather – well, the sun was out, anyway – but
lovely goals for James Justin and Noah Okafor looked like being all the
punishment Wolves would endure on the weekend their relegation could finally be
confirmed until Dominic Calvert-Lewin's 95th-minute penalty.
Electrifying early on, the home side were disappointing
after that, to the point where Daniel Farke was preparing to make a triple
substitution when a shove in Calvert-Lewin's back by Hugo Bueno finally gave
him chance to kill off the game.
From very early on, it had looked like being their day.
When one of your centre-backs is nutmegging the goalkeeper
with an overhead kick, you have to fancy your chances.
If anyone was worried whether Leeds could rouse themselves
for a game against bottom-of-the-table Wolves after two of the best days in
their recent history, they answered it emphatically.
Okafor turned one goal into two little more than a minute
after Justin's impudence, and soon the super-versatile defender was stopping a
threatening Wolves counter-attack with a diving header.
It was not just those on the terraces who were in the mood.
Leeds needed to start with a statement of intent, and
Calvert-Lewin forcing a save after around 25 seconds did that, as Okafor helped
a long ball onto the striker.
A Brenden Aaronson cross was headed behind by Hugo Bueno in
the seventh minute and Justin, surprised by the ball bouncing off a defender to
him, headed the corner over.
When Ethan Amapdu had a shot saved in the 18th minute,
Justin's acrobatics brought a goal which already felt inevitable.
"We're going to Wembley, you're going to Hull,"
taunted the Leeds fans between Okafor songs, although the Tigers – with Leeds
loanee Joe Gelhardt in their ranks – still have designs on the Whites going to
both. Later the home fans changed it to Tottenham, who are under real pressure
now.
Importantly, the hosts very quickly made it two, Aaronson
curling a beautiful low ball to Okafor arriving in space at the far post to cap
his excellent start to the game with a fifth goal in as many Premier League
matches.
And as Leeds' nemesis Adam Armstrong got behind Jaka Bijol
latching onto a long ball, Justin dived full length to head the ball behind.
Having seemingly broken the back of it, they did ease off at
2-0, Calvert-Lewin heading off his line when Ladislav Krejci headed a corner
back towards goal.
But Leeds were lacklustre in the second half, seemingly
reluctant to score the third goal that would allow Farke to make changes ahead
of Wednesday's long trip to Bournemouth.
Ampadu put another overhead kick at a 62nd-mintue corner
made by Krejci's miscontrol but the more significant chances fell to the men in
mint green.
Karl Darlow made an excellent stretching save from Krejci
header, Rodrigo Gomes shot wide under pressure and Adam Armstrong's goal was
disallowed for a marginal but correctly-spotted offside.
But Leeds got there. Substitute Willy Gnonto touched a long
ball back for Pascal Struijk to shoot wide and three minutes into added-time he
picked out Calvert-Lewin to win the penalty he sent Dan Bentley the wrong way
from.
