Like I said last week, luck is with us at the moment. There was a fair bit of ebb and flow with the luck in this game but on balance it'd be a pretty hard-faced Leeds fan who wouldn't settle for a point from this game. The first big piece of luck went against us when their left winger proved there is ballet outside of the Premiership fooling the ref with an outrageous flail and crumple to the ground, in the 10th minute. The blond midfielder (Thornton?) came across and bent it into the top far corner with his right foot; whether he was aiming for goal and whether Caspar should have got to it are both open to question. Not long after this the winger cut in from the left again and bent a fizzing shot against our cross bar with Caspar stationary watching it over his shoulder. I guess that counts as luck for us. Then Thornton clashed with Carole going up for a header, looked like a booking at most, but the ref went straight for the red card. Folk around me were certain he'd led with his elbow, I haven't seen any replays and so can't confirm, but if he did then he raised his hand/elbow and this always gives the ref the option to send off so its a pretty stupid thing to do. This was after 40 minutes or so. Late in the second half we got a certain penalty, when Carole was simply shoved over in the box, after taking the ball at his feet from a throw-in. It was a stupid thing for the defender to do as Carole had his back to goal and was not far from the dead ball line. Their piece of luck came when Kandol won the fight with Beckford and Hughes to take the penalty, while simultaneously forgetting that he's the most feared striker in the league, and promptly blazed a terrible penalty high into the kop. Afterwards DW said he would have nominated Westlake to take it. All this was followed by them apparently scoring a good goal between Caspar's legs, with the ball being a good piece over the line before Caspar grabbed it back - it was down the other end from the Kop but everyone I've heard seems unanimous in their belief that it was a goal, espeically the O's fans at that end. Radio Leeds compared it with the Spurs "goal" at OT a couple of years ago. Even then they weren't finished when they seemed to have another golden opportunity cleared off the line... As for the game as a whole Orient left two impressions - firstly that the like to play neat, swift passing football and can do it pretty well; secondly that they are a bunch of cheating, diving little piss-takers, continually falling to the ground under the slightest contact. Very annoying. They had the better of the earlier exchanges. They were very quick into tackles and challenges for loose balls, especially as it seemed that a lot of our players had forgotten about the basics of close control and continually let the ball roll just too far ahead of them and found an Orient player snapping in to take the ball off them. On the opening half hour's evidence you could see why they had started the season well. They got the goal and hit the bar in short order and Leeds were floundering. We got into some good positions to cross the ball without ever really getting anybody on the end of them - the crosses were either hit beyond the back post or cut-off by one of their CHalfs, both of whom had pretty good games snuffing out Kandol and Backford. The sending off changed the complexion of the game, not least because the guy sent off was their play-maker. Thompson who had previously been fairly anonymous suddenly came into it, using the extra space in midfield well, spraying passes around and generally making the Orient 10-men cover acres of ground. In the second half we pounded them for 35 minutes. We got the equaliser when Carole and Thomspon had a cute little exchange at a corner allowing Carole to carry the ball up to the top corner of the penalty area and then along the box for a few yards, before lashing the ball into the far corner over the keeper who was off his line and the defender on the post. It was very similar to their goal and to their shot that hit the bar. Nice goal. At this point Leeds had up a full head of steam - Beckford was everywhere, cutting in from left, he lashed a shot just around the far post - Kandol was struggling, wanting just one more touch than he should do, but he kept plugging away - Carole was murdering them wherever he got the ball, while Clapham who was playing more or less left midfield rather than left back swung endless crosses in that just failed to reach a Leeds man. Thompson's injury after 65 minutes or so didn't seem to break the flow. Westlake came on and continued to carry the fight to Orient. Kandol missed with a header from 7 yards; Prutton burst through the middle and was almost put in on goal but the ball bounced a little too high. With about 15 minutes or so left DW took off Prutton and Clapham and brought on De Vries and Da Costa. The Portuguese winger immediately making himself a huge favourite by darting between two Orient defenders into the box, where he just lost out to a third, before chasing back after him and blocking his clearance with a fine sliding tackle. The guy can see a killer pass early, has fine close control, is happy running at defenders (although his repeated step-overs do come across as a cut-price Christiano Ronaldo) - all in all I'm looking forward to seeing much more from him in the months to come. In this last period De Vries was unlucky when charging through a few tackles in the middle, to have the ball tipped off his toes by a last ditch sliding tackle when he was in on goal - a fine piece of defending; Kandol, shortly after his penalty aberation, met a beautifully flighted cross with a thumping header, but put it wide. And Heath when last man, blocked one of their strikers running in on goal. He could easily have seen red for that. The only other thing really worth noting was how effective the Orient substitution was. They took off a foward who had looked pretty good, after about 65 minutes and put on another fella. A bigger, stronger forward and proceded to thump everything up to him. He won just about everything he went for and he chased and harried all the back four creating no end of hurried clearances. In the end he caused so much confusion that he almost single-handedly dragged his team mates 10 or 15 yards further up the field to positions where they could support him which by the end was causing all kinds of chaos in the Leeds box. By this time we'd lost all of our shape and were really hanging on. ANKGERGREN - at fault for the goal(s) - shaky on several other occassions - one fine, flying save right at the death - a very patchy day at the office RICHARDSON - solid in defence - loads of attacking effort - good crosses - ran up as many blind alleys as anyone else but kept plugging away, despite a 10 minute spell in the second half when he seemed to suddenly forget that he was a professional footballer - misplacing passes; failing to control the ball... CLAPHAM - very comfortable defensively - piling forward loads before being subbed MARQUES - another exemplary performance - both he and Heath struggled to contain their substitute CForward. HEATH - see above - good defensive work in the air, but as ever vulnerable on the ground. PRUTTON - him and Fraser seemed to get in each other's way several times - another hard working performance THOMPSON - low key, simple ball etc until their sending off, then came to prominence - before being injured HUGHES - all energy - tackles in defence, supporting the forwards - for a spell became our "play-maker", whatever else he brings to the team, this is not his strength CAROLE - quiet first half - burst to life in the second when Orient didn't know what to do about him - cracking goal KANDOL - struggled to get into the game - bad miss on the penalty, not much better with the header a few minutes later - he is a confidence player who just seems to be lacking it at the moment BECKFORD - has more strings to his bow than Kandol and may well in the long run, turn out to be a better player. Caused lots of problems with his intelligent runs, coming in on the blind side. Lots of shots from the edge of the box, without really getting a clear sight of goal. ------------- subs Westlake - slotted in very well, the team didn't miss a beat when he replaced the injured Thomspon De Vries - a couple of muscular efforts, little else Da Costa - realy hope that this guy blossoms for us - he could make a huge difference to our team, with his speed of thought and action, and his skill ------------ so a bit disappointing but still unbeaten; 29 000+ there on a day when the national team were playing as well - can't be bad - still, a few boos rang out at the end - you have to ask, what is wrong with these people? Perhaps a draw will just bring the expectation level down a notch from the utterly ridiculous to the merely extremely unlikely.
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