Leeds sink Derby from unlikely sources and return to Championship summit

Joe Rodon and Max Wöber stepped out of defence to score their first goals for Leeds as Daniel Farke’s side moved to the top of the Championship, ahead of Sheffield United on goal difference.

Given that Illan Meslier, Farke’s goalkeeper, was so underemployed he appeared in danger of hypothermia by the end, it is probably to safe to assume that Tuesday night’s engagement with a key promotion rival in Michael Carrick’s Middlesbrough will be somewhat tougher but Leeds still did enough to suggest they should not be underestimated.

At times the wind was so strong it threatened to bend the corner flags permanently out of shape. Throw in additional periods of driving rain and it was perhaps not entirely surprising that Leeds’ final ball initially kept letting them down.

By way of further mitigation Derby’s five-man defence and low block hardly made things straightforward for Farke’s players as they struggled to translate protracted periods of possession into material advantage.

If set pieces offered the home crowd hope of breaking the impasse, Rodon was left in head-in-hands mode when he headed wide after finding himself in a little space at a corner for once.

Undeterred Rodon soon redeemed himself by sending an infinitely more difficult headed opening powering past Jacob Widell Zetterström after beating Kane Wilson to Joe Rothwell’s corner.

Seconds earlier Zetterström, who touched but could not hold Rodon’s opener, had done well to push Brendan Aaranson’s low shot away for that set play but now his team-mates were being forced to chase a game that threatened to accelerate away from them.

It did not help that Leeds’ smart pressing and positioning generally ensured that, on the rare occasions Derby escaped their own half, they were forced into wildly optimistic long balls of the sort that guaranteed Meslier a very quiet afternoon in the home goal.

Shortly before the interval, Zetterström was beaten once more. Again the goal came from a defender, with the on-rushing Wöber applying the incisive final touch inside the six yard box after Dan James’s failure to properly connect with a cross from the impressive Aaronson.

Wober had begun on the substitutes’ bench but after swiftly replacing the hamstrung Junior Firpo at left-back the Austrian had, like Rodon, scored his first goal in a Leeds shirt.

If Elland Road expected a second half visiting fight back it failed to arrive. Instead Derby seemed to be very much in damage limitation mode, defending almost as deep as ever and wasting rare attacks by snatching at the ball.

Zetterström made decent saves to kill the danger from a James volley and a shot unleashed by the, once again, string pulling Ao Tanaka. The latter, a Japan midfielder, is proving to have been an extremely clever summer signing from Fortuna Düsseldorf on Farke’s part.