I can’t believe I missed this when it was published, but the Times has an article entitled “The Soul of Leeds United in 50 Moments” that is just brilliant. The highlights:

#43: Billy Bremner punching Kevin Keegan. Let’s be honest: who wouldn’t want to?

#38: The Smiley Badge of the 1970s (on the left). Probably the best team logo, ever.

#33: Playing with detachable commemorative sock tags in the 1970s, which has to be one of most deranged ideas in football history.

#26: The best goal in the history of football, as scored by Eddie Gray in 1970. I’ll post a video when I finish writing my “team history tuesday” piece on him – and it is, believe me, the best goal ever. Or at least of the 1970s.

#18: Marching on Together. How many teams have an anthem written by the guy who wrote “It’s not Unusual” for Tom Jones?

The whole list is great, and well worth a read.

Sheffield United are apparently strongly opposed to Gary Speed’s rumoured move to Leeds. McAllister seems to want him as his assistant manager, despite Speed having no managerial experience. The 39-year-old is about to start a player-coach contract at Sheffield, but is best known for playing alongside McAllister in the midfield of the title-winning 1991 team. I was already worried that McAllister doesn’t really know what he’s doing; now he’s planning to appoint an assistant who certainly doesn’t know what he’s doing. Count me officially concerned. Still, I had a poster of Gary McAllister on my wall when I was seven, so I can’t be too skeptical about him.

And those are your lunchtime links. I’ll be back later with a match report from last night’s defeat at Southend United.

It’s frustrating, yes, but at least we didn’t lose. Full match report when video highlights are online. In the meantime, I’m off to the TV to watch Tottenham Hotspur (hopefully) destroy Manchester United. Is there a better way to spend a Sunday? Am I deluded by my natural Leeds-fan hatred for Manchester United? We’ll know in two hours…

November 25th: Leeds played a regular league match against Cheltenham, losing 1-0. Pundits the world over began to worry (with some satisfaction in many cases) that Leeds were about to start another losing streak. This was foolish, as Leeds completely outplayed Cheltenham, had an equaliser disallowed, and by all the rights deserved to leave the field as victors, which can’t be said of a lot of the games they’ve won this season. I can’t find any highlights, so you’ll have to take my word for it. The Yorkshire Evening Post match report is here.

December 4th: Leeds began their match against Port Vale still dogged by the widespread belief that they would soon implode. They walked off the field 3-0 winners, silencing at least some of the critics. No highlights available, sadly. Click here for the Yorkshire Evening Post match report.

December 8th: Another league match, this time a local derby of epic proportions, with giant Leeds United taking on tiny Huddersfield Town. Leeds left the pitch at half-time 1-0 ahead despite being the second-best team on the pitch for most of the last 45 minutes, but retook the field a changed team and scored three more goals while playing Huddersfield off the pitch. This is probably attributable to Dennis Wise discovering at half-time that vandals – who I think it’s fair to say will be lynched by Leeds hooligans if their identities are ever made public – had covered Elland Road’s statue of Leeds legend Billy Bremner in graffiti. I’ll write about that later in the week, because it sickens me. There’s a match report here, in the Yorkshire Evening Post. For the goals, check out this video:

Leeds fielded a substantially different team to Wise’s first-choice eleven, but given the size of the team’s squad, it wasn’t – on paper, at least – a substantially weaker one. The team changes in full:

David Lucas replaced Casper Ankergren in goal after a good performance in keeping a clean sheet against Darlington. I still think Ankergren is a much better goalkeeper than Lucas, but Lucas did well, and was probably not at fault for Bury’s brace in this match.

Paul Huntington, Simon Madden, and Ben Parker (for a profile of the latter, click here) were slotted into the United defence to give Frazer Richardson the chance to recover from a stomach bug and Jamie Clapham a chance to rest before this weekend’s league match against Swindon. Paul Huntington is a more experienced defender than the other two, but is still very young and only a fringe-first-team player; Ben Parker is young but shows a fair bit of promise and may get the chance to cement a first-team place if Dennis Wise opts not to bring in a replacement for Jamie Clapham, who returns to parent club Wolverhampton Wanderers at the end of the month. Simon Madden’s selection came out of nowhere, to be honest, but he played reasonably well and certainly didn’t embarass himself. Leeds’s defence proved a little shaky throughout the match, especially during set-pieces. On paper, there’s nothing wrong with playing the defence used in this game; in practice, it can be difficult for players who have never played together competitively to gel quickly enough for a serious match, and that may have been a problem here.

In midfield, Leeds selected Filipe da Costa for his home debut, a decision which will haunt Dennis Wise and Dave Bassett after he received a straight red card for a dangerous challenge in the 42nd minute. He’d played pretty well up until that point, and he’s still my favourite Leeds player outside the first eleven, but I imagine the poor guy’s in hell right now.

Wise’s most controversial selection decision was to bench both Jermaine Beckford and Tresor Kandol, instead offering a debut to the pairing of Leon Constantine and Mark de Vries. Jermaine Beckford’s absence was enforced by the stomach bug currently afflicting the Leeds squad, but Tresor Kandol spent the first half of the game on the Leeds bench. Given Beckford’s absence, trying an alternative strike pairing was probably a good idea, and Leon Constantine’s first goal was good enough to erase any doubts about using him in the future. Mark de Vrie’s finishing wasn’t fantastic, but he played well and Leeds certainly created enough chances to win, even if they couldn’t quite bring them all to fruition.

All three goals, plus Filipe da Costa’s red card, are here:

First up, Leon Constantine: an excellent goal created by winger Sebastian Carole, whose beautiful upfield pass gave Constantine a perfect opportunity to put Leeds ahead. Carole really is turning into a class player this season, after spending most of the last season trying (with great success) to convince Leeds fans he was rubbish. I’m glad to see him developing, and at his current rate of improvement, he’ll be more than good enough to play on our wing in the Championship next season.

Then come the goals from Bury: both from corners, both a result of frankly abysmal set-piece defence from Leeds. It’s one thing to concede two goals having been outplayed; it’s another thing to concede from a set-piece situation, the defence of which should be simple and well-practiced. Especially in the case of the second goal, Leeds’s defence looked simply shambolic, and it’s not on at all – two Leeds defenders, having failed abjectly to communicate, both jumped for the same high ball and ended up slamming into each other, leaving an opening for Bury to take the lead and, as it turned out, the game. Defending a corner isn’t complicated and Leeds should not have had such difficulty with it in this game, especially considering that the game against Carlisle was lost on the back of more shoddy set-piece defence. Assistant Manager Dave Bassett agrees, so hopefully Leeds’s defence will spend some time this week learning how to defend a corner.

As for Filipe da Costa’s red card: it may have been a little harsh, but the tackle was certainly reckless and possibly dangerous, and the referee was well within his rights to issue a straight red. Assistant Manager Dave Bassett has already endorsed the referee’s decision, telling the Yorkshire Evening Post: “He’s distraught, the kid. He’s not that type of player to be fair. Filipe is more of a mover, but obviously if you make that sort of challenge, the ref is going to send you off. He gave the rest of the boys an uphill task and he’ll do his running today that he didn’t do in the second half.”

The Leeds Offside Man of the Match: Jim Provett, Bury’s goalkeeper, for a number of exceptional saves without which Bury would have sunk without a trace.

“We did not give a good account of ourselves and we looked tired and jaded. We can perform better than we did but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt as we’ve played Carlisle, Bournemouth and Hereford this week. It was a cup final for them, having mighty Leeds at Hereford. They wanted to cause an upset but they didn’t.”

I can agree with Wise to an extent, but there remains the fact that Leeds really should not have struggled against a team of Hereford’s standard, giant-killing reputation or not. Highlights of the match, such as they are, after the “read more” button.

Now, though, I think it’s important to be realistic. That we lost is unimportant – every team loses from time to time, and losing a match while away at the league leaders would, for any other team, be a fairly unremarkable thing. The trouble is that Leeds are – indisputably – the best team in League One and, prior to this match, were regarded by a lot of smaller clubs as nigh-on invincible. Of course, losing to Carlisle isn’t exactly a dreadful loss, but the psychological blow to Leeds (and boon to the rest of League One) could be dangerous. What Leeds need, more than anything, is to wipe the floor with Bournemouth in tonight’s game. If Leeds can enter the game with the same confidence and determination they’ve shown throughout this season, hammering Bournemouth shouldn’t present much of a problem. A setback tonight, though, could be disastarous to Leeds’s confidence and ability to continue to mount their title challenge. I, for one, am bloody nervous.

Leeds stretched their unbeaten run to a staggering 13 games (11 wins, two draws) with a spectacular 4-2 win over Milwall. United dominated from the first minute of the game, and Milwall’s two consolation goals only came while Leeds were four goals ahead and got lazy. I’ll have a full match report when I find a computer capable of running video – I’m currently in a rubbish web café in Machu Picchu Pueblo, and will be in La Paz next week. I’m not holding out hope, to be honest, but it’ll be up as soon as possible.

Leeds first goal was scored by David Prutton (I hereby take back every negative thing I’ve ever said about him), with the second a Jermaine Beckford finish from a Tresor Kandol assist. Jonathon Douglas, still filling in as captain, scored his first goals of the season, the first from a corner and the second from a free kick, to put Leeds four goals ahead and unasailable by the 60th minute. The Leeds defence promptly fell asleep and conceded two pointless goals in the 65th and 76th minutes (from Hoskins and Brkovic respectively) before waking up and doing their jobs again.

The win puts us, despite a pre-season 15 point penalty, in sixth place in League One, ahead of Nottingham Forest on goal difference and in a playoff position. Of course, without the ridiculous and unjust point penalty, Leeds are in first place in the League, 11 points ahead of current leaders Cardiff, but alas, the world isn’t fair.

Championship, here we come! All hail Dennis Wise!

Leeds were on the back foot at first, with Leyton Orient receiving two free kicks – both of them a little dubious – in the first ten minutes of play. The second, from a rather dubious Sebastien Carole foul, led to the first goal of the game. I might not be convinced it was valid, but it was a beautiful free kick from Orient’s Sean Thronton. Here it is on YouTube.

Tresor Kandol – one half of Leeds’s superb striking partnership – put an easy shot way over the crossbar early on in the first half, starting a trend of poor-finishing that persisted throughout the match, and ultimately cost Leeds the win. The best chance of the first half, though, came from Orient’s Jason Demetriou in the 25th minute. His excellent strike curled towards the Leeds goal, but bounced harmlessly off the post, and was the last dangerous Orient before the game swung perilously against them in the 32nd minute. After a sloppy challenge on Leeds’s Sebastien Carole, in which he appeared to elbow the player in the face, Orient’s goalscorer Sean Thornton received a straight red card, reducing his side to ten men and putting them firmly on the defensive for most of the rest of the game.

Leeds were firmly in control and on the offensive at the start of the second half, and it was only a matter of time before one of their shots – a fantastic curling effort by Tresor Kandol – made it into the net. Considering the number of shots on goal Kandol had during this match, however, it’s a wonder he was only able to make one of them count: sometimes he looks like Leeds’s best player, while at other times like he’d struggle to hit a barn door. Sebastien Carole, for my money Leeds’s best midfielder, also had a fair number of chances to score, but couldn’t make any of them count.

Kandol was given a golden opportunity to put Leeds in the lead – and make up for his finishing deficiencies – when Orient’s Paul Terry fouled Sebastien Carole (who’s becoming a magnet for fouls at the moment) in the penalty area. The subsequent penalty will live on as one of the worst Leeds have seen in a while: Kandol appeared to be under the impression that he was playing rugby. If that man is ever allowed to take a penalty for Leeds again, I’ll take back every nice thing I’ve ever said about Dennis Wise.

And then, Leyton Orient won the match. Only they didn’t. Kind of. Orient’s Adam Boyd took a shot, which Casper Ankergren saved, then fumbled. The ball rolled over the line before being thrown out by a contrite-looking Ankergren. The referee failed to notice that Leyton had, in fact, scored the match-winning goal and called for play-on, despite 10 incredulous Orient players protesting. Leeds retained their unbeaten status with a deserved, but wrong, draw.

leeds.theoffside.com Man of the Match: Nigel Miller (the referee). Seriously, who else can we pick? If he hadn’t disallowed our last goal, Leyton Orient would have broken Leeds’s unbeaten run. Thanks, Nigel.

Anyway – onto the match. Apologies for posting so late in the week, but I only just got access to video. Unfortunately, I can’t post any highlights, because it’s only available through a subscription to Leeds United’s official website. Blame Ken Bates – I know I do.

Brighton were always going to be tough, but I don’t think anyone expected a game as tight as this one. Despite going unbeaten in 12 games, Leeds’s form has been inconsistent, with the midfield in particular unable to dictate the pace of play against competent opponents. That was bourne out in last weekend’s fixture against a solid Brighton team, which Leeds managed to win 1-0 despite being the second-best team on the pitch for most of the afternoon.

The first half was uneventful, livened up, if only briefly, by Jermaine Beckford’s yellow card for a sloppy collision with Brighton goalkeeper Michael Kuipers. Neither side managed many shots on goal at all during the match, but Brighton generally looked the more dangerous side. Leeds’s defence has been one of the team’s best features all season, and today was no exception – the ability of a team to grind out goals and defend stubbornly even when out of form is a hallmark of a winning side, and despite Leeds’s second-rate performance in this match, it gives me considerable optimism for the rest of the season.

Tresor Kandol’s 78th minute match-winner – scored from all of 6 inches after a rubbish bit of defending from Brighton’s Adam El-Abd needlessly turned a harmless Frazer Richardson cross into an easy Leeds goal  - might have been a little bit underwhelming, but it did the job, and should help us all forget about his horrifically botched penalty against Leyton Orient. He and Jermaine Beckford had a difficult game in the face of one of the better defences in League One, and in all honesty, that he scored at all was more a matter of luck than of skill. In the 77th minute, I’d probably have put money on a 0-0 draw, a result which was the least Brighton had earned.

leeds.theoffside.com Man of the Match: Kasper Ankergren. Well on the way to earning another League One Player of the Month accolade, Ankergren managed more than one tricky save to keep Leeds ahead in a game that could very easily have gone Brighton’s way. He narrowly beats out Brighton’s Adam El-Abd, without whom – let’s be honest here – Tresor Kandol would never have scored the matchwinner.

The Team: Pretty much exactly as I predicted in my Match Preview last week, and with only one change from the last match against Leyton Orient. Ankergren in goal, Richardson, Heath, Marques, and Clapham in defence. Prutton, Hughes, Douglas, and the always excellent Carole formed the Leeds midfield, whilst Beckford and Kandol teamed up in the attack. On the bench were Westlake, De Vries, Huntington, Lucas, and Andrews. Still no sign of Felipe Da Costa, although I can still hope.

Bookings: Beckford and Marques both received yellow cards, as did Brighton’s Whing.

This Saturday: Leeds face Milwall at Elland Road. Should be a difficult game, despite Leeds’s home advantage, and since the teams each have some of the worst records in English football for fan violence, expect fireworks. Full match preview tomorrow.