Ipswich 3-0 Leeds: Match Report

Tom Lees was sent off for the away side after 32 minutes which the home side took full advantage of. Substitute Jay Emmanuel-Thomas completed the rout for the home side who steer four points clear of the relegation zone.

After a slow opening ten minutes Leeds finally came out of the blocks but failed to make the Tractor Boys pay. Stephen Warnock struck the post directly from a corner and Paul Green’s follow up effort was cleared off the line by Andy Drury.

For a change Leeds were shooting on sight with Scott Loach looking shaky. David Norris, against his former club, failed to open the scoring after missing a number of good chances.

Leeds were in total domination, but the game was turned on its head after 32 minutes when Tom Lees was shown a straight red for a challenge on Jay Tabb. Sam Byram moved into the centre half position with Paul Green slotting in at right back.

Lees will miss the next three games which will be a huge blow given his consistency this season.

After a spell of possession from the home side, Leeds carved out another opening but couldn’t find the back of the net. Steve Morison guilty of missing a golden opportunity after scooping over bar from seven yards out.

In injury time the home side found the net through striker David McGoldrick, whose first effort struck the bar and then he followed in his rebound and opened the scoring right before half time.

Warnock changed things around at half time bringing on Jason Pearce to replace Paul Green with Byram moving back into his favoured right back role.

This however didn’t make any difference as after 49 minutes McGoldrick got his second and doubled the Tractor Boys lead over the visitors after good work down the left from Luke Hyam.

Leeds did start to build some pressure but Morison was once again guilty of missing more chances that a certain Argentine may have finished off. The Welsh striker had a header cleared off the line from inside the six-yard box when really he should have done a lot better.

At the other end substitute Jay Emmanel-Thomas heaped more misery on Warnock’s men as he added a third from close range.

Warnock responds as he normally does when we’re behind with a couple of subs with Ross McCormack and Aidy White replacing Michael Tonge and Luke Varney.

Leeds failed to make anymore clear cut chances throughout the game with Ipswich exploiting the Whites attempts to throw more men forward. Micheal Chopra and Emmanuel-Thomas giving Leeds the run-around and both had decent chances to add more salt into United’s wound.

Despite the home side being very very very average, Leeds have no-one to blame except themselves. Perhaps the sending off didn’t help, but Leeds didn’t have the quality in front of goal to get something out of the game

I tried to stay positive before today’s game thinking if we could win three games on the trot, like Birmingham have, we could still be in with a chance of sneaking into the play-offs. However, the season is over. Bring on another summer of uncertainty no doubt.