Big match verdict: Lacklustre Leeds United fall to damaging defeat

The songs at the end arrived from the Black Country and not from the home ranks on a bleak, sunless afternoon for Leeds United. The chant of ‘You’re going nowhere, we’ll see you next year’ from the Wolves contingent was as cutting as it gets.

Given the evidence of yesterday and the updated Championship table, Wolves fans may have a point following an asphxiating occasion for Leeds, who dropped out of the top six for the first time since late November and displayed a rotten sense of timing.

Unfortunately, there was to be no silver lining for Leeds like at St James’ Park on Good Friday.

The hosts were everywhere, but nowhere when they needed method; they produced a morass of a performance that was riddled with anxiety in which both minds and limbs appeared heavy.

Wolves have previous when it comes to inflicting pain upon Leeds at the sharp end of a season – mention Molineux 1972 to any seasoned Whites follower and you will receive a dark look.

While their victory at Elland Road cannot quite be bracketed alongside the win that savagely ended Leeds’s hopes of top-flight glory and the double in the Spring of 1972, it inflicted a grevious wound upon their current campaign, nevertheless.

Leeds, whose “granite jaw” was lauded by head coach Garry Monk following their last-gasp draw at Newcastle, dropped their guard fatally and offered a worrying rewind to the tail end of 2010-11 when the Whites picked the worst possible time to lose their way and tumbled out of the play-off positions.

Much of the talk beforehand had centred on talismanic defender Pontus Jansson and whether a 15th booking of the season and a three-match ban might be a price worth paying if it meant that he would be available for the play-offs.

Yesterday’s events cleared up that issue with the Swede very much required in the here and now to help secure a top-six spot.

United’s unflinching Elland Road form may have been the source of justifiable pride in a strong campaign, but on the evidence of the first half, it was worryingly for home ambitions open-house as opposed to fortress-like.

It made a total mockery of the fact that Leeds had not conceded a first-half home goal in 12 Championship matches since Dwight Gayle netted for Newcastle in their 2-0 win in Leeds on November 20, with the only saving grace at the interval being that the hosts only trailed 1-0.

Nervy Leeds were sloppy in possession and overrun at times, with Wolves full value for a lead given to them in eye-catching fashion in the 38th minute by Nouha Dicko.

With Jansson stranded upfield, Wanderers countered in devastating fashion, with a beautifully weighted defence-splitting pass from the impressive Ben Marshall sending Dicko clear and he coolly steered the ball low past the advancing Rob Green.

It was just the third Championship goal that Leeds had conceded before the interval at Elland Road this term and it could well prove a massive moment in their season for all the wrong reasons.

In front of a bumper holiday crowd, Leeds produced a passive first half against visitors who fed off the hosts’ nerves.

Passes went astray continually from those in white, with Wolves, by contrast, displaying energy and conviction on the counter.

It should have yielded a 16th-minute opener for Andreas Weimann when dithering from Jansson and Gaetano Berardi let in the fleet-footed loanee and only a fine one-on-one block from Green saved the day,

Green then smartly parried a shot on the turn from Dave Edwards, but he was powerless to prevent Dicko from breaching his defences after Leeds were undressed on the break.

Thankfully, no further damage occurred in an abject first period and while the second half saw Leeds palpably show more desire, there was little wit and guile to soothe the nerves of the sullen home crowd.

A decent half-chance did come when Jansson headed over at the far post from Pablo Hernandez’s corner, but it was all rather token,

The promotion of Hadi Sacko from the bench did at least inject some urgency, but it was another replacement in Souleymane Doukara who went closest when his header was tipped over by Andy Lonergan, afforded a quiet afternoon back at his former club.

The closest that Leeds got arrived in the last minute when substitute Kortney Hause headed Kemar Roofe’s effort off the line, but there were to be no late heroics as witnessed on Tyneside.

Leeds United: Green; Ayling, Bartley, Jansson, Berardi (Taylor 63); Phillips, Bridcutt (Sacko 56); Roofe, Hernandez, Pedraza (Doukara 72); Wood. Unused substitutes: Peacock-Farrell, Coyle, O’Kane, Dallas.

Wolves: Lonergan; Coady, Williamson, Stearman, Doherty; Saville (Evans 68), Saiss; Marshall (Hause 85), Edwards, Weimann; Dicko (Bodvarsson 68). Unused substitutes: Burgoyne, Iorfa, Price, Gibbs-White.

Referee: J Simpson (Lancashire).