Blackburn Rovers 2 Leeds United 1: United’s far from wise men gift win to Rovers

There may have been a few dressed as Santa Claus among the Whites’ huge 6,839 away support in the Darwen End, but it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas on the pitch as Leeds crumbled not just to gift-wrap three points to Rovers but put a blue-and-white bow on top.

Even accounting for United’s at times painful recent history, this was something else, enough to make the most hard-nosed and weathered of Leeds supporters grimace.

A Beatles song tells of 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. Marco Silvestri would have settled for just one in which to bury his head after the sort of pantomime moment that all goalkeeper’s dread when he served up Jordan Rhodes’s 71st-minute equaliser on a platter.

Sam Byram was then involved in a moment of horror when he conceded a soft penalty.

There were some theatrics from victim and former United striker Luke Varney, for sure, but if you are a defender and the game is on a knife-edge, with precious little time left to play, you stay on your feet and do not dive in.

It ruined the day for all Leeds followers and Stephen Warnock, who was looking for the perfect return to one of his former clubs.

The full-back said: “It’s disappointing and there is a bit of anger as well with the stupid mistakes we made with the first goal.

“Sometimes it just drags you down a little bit and it is how you react that counts.

“We should have just got on with it and probably a few heads dropped and we should have reacted a lot better in fact and then gone again as we should have known we had enough in us to score another goal.

“I have not seen the (penalty) incident and Sam does not believe it is a penalty.

“But you have to stay on your feet in and around the box because you know once you stick a leg out in the box anything can happen and the referee was waiting to give it.”

Seventy minutes in, while not exactly time for Jingle Bells chants from the packed away ranks, representing easily the largest travelling support from a Championship club this season, it was all very comfortable. Perhaps too comfortable.

Rovers hardly looked like a side who went into the game on a seven-match unbeaten streak, with Leeds, despite not hitting the heights of an accomplished first-half showing, decent value for their lead, forged by Souleymane Doukara’s close-range strike following Adryan’s corner on 33 minutes.

Then it happened, with Silvestri inexplicably failing to make a routine clearance when running out of goal with Liam Cooper in the vicinity and presenting the hitherto anonymous Rhodes with a tap-in which he netted almost apologetically.

Worse was to come, but not before Mirco Antenucci almost won it for Leeds when he hit a post in a breakaway. Another goal was to come, but not for the visitors.

All this after Rovers were reduced to 10 men when former United junior Tom Cairney received a second yellow card for a foul on his former Hull City team-mate Cooper.

But the fateful card was played by Byram with Varney accepting his invitation to go over his outstretched leg.

Rhodes did the business from the spot for Rovers, who have claimed 12 points from losing positions so far this term. Some habit that.

Amid the cursing of Wright for the late penalty award, there was also a realisation that, in the final analysis, Leeds lacked the savvy to see out a game they largely controlled – as Warnock admitted.

In the Championship, where the itinerary can be gruelling at times and fortunes quickly fluctuate, you do not win extra points for artistic impression. It is about getting the job done.

Warnock, mindful of Leeds’s difficult looking schedule in the run-up to the festive season and the fact they are just two points above third-from-bottom Rotherham United, added: “You would rather play rubbish and win a game.

“That is one of the disappointing things and one of the sides to our game we need to sort.

“We have put in some great first-half displays and play well for spells in the second half, but never carry it out for 90 minutes.

“It is something that Redders (head coach Neil Redfearn) said that he wants to address and knock out of us.

“It is frustrating, definitely. But we all know what this league is like; you don’t have to be the best team in the league to get out of it.

“You have got to be organised, resilient and well-drilled and, at the moment, we are to a certain point, but are then conceding silly goals.”

On United’s league position, he added: “I think you always worry when you are in position like that as you are not guaranteed results or to get out of it.

“So the quicker we get results, the quicker we start climbing the table, and the happier everyone will be.”

Blackburn Rovers: Steele, Baptiste, Hanley, Duffy, Olsson, Cairney, Evans (Taylor 89), Williamson (Tunnicliffe 65), Marshall, Rhodes, Gestede (Varney 74). Unused substitutes: Henley, Dunn, Eastwood, Conway.

Leeds United: Silvestri, Byram, Cooper, Pearce, Warnock, Bianchi (Bellusci 76), Cook (Sharp 89), Mowatt, Adryan, Doukara, Antenucci. Unused substitutes: Austin, Berardi, Stuart Taylor, Tonge, Dawson.

Referee: K Wright (Cambs).