Out of sorts Leeds United suffer first defeat

Leeds United suffered their first defeat of the season in the Sky Bet Championship when they were controversially denied a late penalty and went down 1-0 to a well organised Ipswich Town side.
Sam Byram goes down in the area, but fails to win a penalty for Leeds United against Ipswich. Picture: Bruce RollinsonSam Byram goes down in the area, but fails to win a penalty for Leeds United against Ipswich. Picture: Bruce Rollinson
Sam Byram goes down in the area, but fails to win a penalty for Leeds United against Ipswich. Picture: Bruce Rollinson

Whites boss Uwe Rosler also thought his side should have had a first half penalty for a handball, but any spot-kick would have only masked Leeds’ worst display under the German.

He surprisingly abandoned his 4-3-3 formation to find a starting place for Mirco Antenucci and put Lewis Cook on the left wing with Stuart Dallas switching to the right hand side in place of the dropped Sam Byram. Luke Murphy came in for Alex Mowatt in midfield.

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The tactical changes certainly did not work and in a flat first half which has become the norm at Elland Road this season United failed to get going.

The Whites’ tempo was too slow, their tactics too predictable and the Ipswich defence could not believe their luck after they came into the game off the back of a five-goal drubbing at Reading.

Early on Gaetano Berardi’s dangerous low cross was scrambled clear and Cook was sent away by Chris Wood, but lost the ball in the box to a good challenge from Luke Chambers, but Leeds failed to test Ipswich keeper Dean Gerken.

It was 26 minutes before the first shot came in when Antenucci’s effort from the edge of the box was deflected and gave Gerken an easy save.

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From Ipswich’s first effort on goal they opened the scoring on 32 minutes as they were gifted a corner and from it home keeper Marco Silvestri lost the flight of the ball, it was knocked across goal and volleyed in from close range by Tommy Smith.

David McGoldrick then blasted over from an angle after turning to get away from Sol Bamba.

Leeds looked for an improvement in the second half as they had done in their previous two home matches, but it was the visitors who looked more likely to add to their lead as Silvestri could only turn a Daryl Murphy low cross away for a corner and was forced into another save when Ainsley Maitland-Niles’ hit a volley from the edge of the box.

Dangerous winger Ryan Fraser went on a run into the box and saw his cross-shot turned behind by the home keeper while McGoldrick and Fraser hit shots from distance with the former’s effort needing to be saved at two attempts.

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McGoldrick hit another shot from the edge of the box that required a save before Leeds finally made changes, Byram coming on for the tired looking Stuart Dallas and Mowatt in place of the ineffective Tom Adeyemi. They improved as Cook was not far wide with a shot from outside the box and Murphy made space nicely on the edge of the box only to shoot wide.

Cook hit another effort just wide and it was Leeds doing all the forcing late on as they finally found the drive that had been lacking.

Their big moment came on 85 minutes when a great run and slide rule pass by Cook set Byram clear into the box, but just as he was about to shoot he appeared to be pushed over by Jonas Knudsen. However, instead of pointing to the spot referee James Adcock gave a free-kick to Ipswich and booked the Leeds player for a dive.

It was a controversial moment and angered home fans who had also seen a certain penalty waved away in Saturday’s game against Brentford.

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Ipswich hung on in the face of further pressure and six minutes of injury-time and although lucky with the penalty decision had deserved to take three points on their long journey home.

Match facts

(Smith 32)

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Sky Bet Championship

Attendance: 21,312

Leeds: Silvestri, Berardi, Bamba, Cooper, Taylor, Dallas (Byram 59), Adeyemi (Mowatt 69), Murphy, Cook, Antenucci, Wood.

Ipswich: Gerken, Chambers, Smith, Berra, Knudsen, Maitland-Niles (Pitman 84), Douglas, Skuse (Coke 76), Fraser (Parr 76), McGoldrick, Murphy.

Referee: James Adcock.