Southampton 3 Leeds 4-what a comeback

By Andy Baggott
November 21 2005

Leeds came back from the dead on Saturday, in one of the biggest turnarounds in the clubs history. After an awful first 70 minutes, which saw them trail 3-0, sub David Healy inspired them to score 4 goals in the last 19 minutes.

The first half was a shocker for Leeds. Marian Pahars had headed the Saints into the lead from a corner. Svensson was unmarked and headed it across goal, where Pahars, aqlso unmarked had a simple header from 2 yards. Worse was to follow. Walcott skinned Kilgallon down the right and squared foe Quasie, who’s run wasn’t tracked by Derry, for the second. Before half time, it looked all over. Dan Harding handled, and Quasie blasted home from the spot.

It was a truly awful first half showing, but the second half wasn’t a whole lot better to start. Leeds stepped up the work rate, inspired by some fantastic support from the away fans, but never looked like scoring. The introduction of David Healy changed that though. Healy hasn’t trained for a couple of weeks due to an ankle injury, but was inspirational. His shot was blocked, and from the resulting corner, Paul Butler powered home a header. With less than 20 minutes left though, it looked little more than a consolation. However, Healy had other ideas, and after crossing from the right, Blake fired home to give us real hope. It was all Leeds now as Southampton looked shell shocked, and when Healy won a penalty, the comeback was almost complete. The Northern Ireland striker took the kick himself, and scored in style to make it all level. Leeds pressed for the winner, and with 4 minutes to go, on loan Liam Miller won it, poking home Hulse’s cross to signal wild scenes from players and supporters alike.

Certainly lessons have to b learnt from this. On the downside, much of the play was awful, and the players looked lost. On the positive side, we have shown that there are goals in this team, and we now need to carry the belief forward, and kick on from here.
For now though, lets at least bask for a day or two on a superb comeback from the men from Elland Road.