Leeds came from behind twice to take a draw from last night’s visit to Brighton and Hove Albion, but the home side will feel they should have won after creating the better chances throughout the game.
After Tuesday night’s victory over Southampton Neil Warnock decided to stick with the same starting eleven, keeping Varney as a central striker instead of Becchio. But this time we struggled from the outset, with the midfield overrun for most of the first half as Brighton cut through us with a series of neat passing moves.
In the first few minutes Tom Lees had to be alert to block a shot from Ashley Barnes, and their next attack saw Michael Brown earning a yellow card for a foul just outside the area. On that occasion we survived as Orlandi’s free-kick was deflected wide, but the home side took a deserved lead in the 15th minute.
Peltier clumsily tripped Buckley in the area and Mackail-Smith made no mistake with the spot kick, hitting it hard and straight as Kenny dived to his right. And still the chances kept coming for Brighton, with Mackail-Smith hitting the post before they gifted us the chance to get back into the game on 35 minutes.
Bruno pulled Varney in the area in an off-the-ball incident spotted by the referee, and although Gus Poyet would later insist that our man dived, the Brighton man had definitely fouled Varney in his efforts to get in front of him. With regular penalty taker Becchio off the field at that point it was up to Diouf to do the honours, and thankfully he put it right in the corner as Kuszczak.
Shortly before the break Tom Lees had to be replaced by Pugh, as he was suffering from blurred vision after being caught in the face by a flailing arm as he contested a header. Brighton might have felt aggrieved at going in level at half-time, but they were back in front only two minutes into the second half, when Buckley was allowed to run down the right unchallenged and pull the ball back for Mackail-Smith.
Then came another incident which got Poyet hot under the collar, as Brown again conceded a free kick just outside the box. The referee declined to show him a second yellow, and in my opinion justifiably so, as it was only the slightest of pulls on the forward and it would have been extremely harsh if he’d got sent off for that.
I couldn’t see why that should be regarded as a compulsory yellow card, but then again I did grow up watching football in the 1970s, when you wouldn’t get booked unless you’d taken a machete to someone’s legs! But Poyet later claimed that Brown “shouldn’t have been on the pitch” when he played a key role in Leeds second equaliser in the 65th minute.
Warnock had just replaced Varney with Becchio in an effort to get Leeds back into the game, and when Brown surged through the defence and hit a fierce right foot shot from 20 yards it took a deflection off Becchio, which took it past Kuszczak into the corner of the net. By now we were having more of the game than we had in the first half, and Becchio was close to giving us the lead with a header that went just past the post.
But it was Brighton who had the best chance to win the game with 17 minutes left, as the third penalty of the night was awarded when Mackail-Smith stopped in front of Byram and our young player ran into him. Mackail-Smith took the penalty himself, but this time Kenny went the right way, and the kick came at a nice height for him to make the save.
With ten minutes left Norris became the final Leeds substitute when he replaced Diouf, possibly because the Senegal man was getting a bit irate after a couple of incidents and Warnock was afraid he might have got sent off. El-Abd kept patting him on the head, and Diouf didn’t take kindly to it, as doing that is an insult in his culture!
As the game went into injury time, both sides had chances to snatch it with a late winner. Tonge sent a free kick just wide, and Kenny made a great save from Cofts. And that was about it, yet another league game in which we’ve ridden our luck and picked up points despite a sub-standard performance. Must do better.