Bristol City vs Leeds United. Sky Bet Championship.
Ashton Gate StadiumAttendance25,429.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship clash between Bristol City and Leeds United at Ashton Gate on Friday | Willy Gnonto scores only goal as Daniel Farke's side move up to second ahead of rest of the weekend's matches.
Saturday 3 February 2024 07:17, UK
Willy Gnonto scored the only goal as Leeds United won 1-0 at Bristol City to move second in the Sky Bet Championship.
The strike early in the second half from Gnonto, just the 20-year-old's second league goal of the season, proved decisive at Ashton Gate, and took Leeds into the automatic-promotion places for the first time this season.
They have, however, played two games more than Ipswich and Southampton, who are both in action on Saturday and could go back above them.
Bristol City, who rarely threatened, remain in the bottom half of the table.
Leeds dominated the first half and spurned two golden opportunities to take the lead. The first came via a mistake from George Tanner, which allowed Crysencio Summerville to race in on goal, before his effort to dink it over Max O'Leary was kept out by the Bristol City goalkeeper.
O'Leary was also on hand to deny Georginio Rutter from close range, who couldn't beat him from six yards after the ball had ricocheted into his path from Patrick Bamford's cross.
Just after the break, however, they found their way through. Junior Firpo's ball found Gnonto on the edge of the box, who made space and then fired one in.
Liam Manning responded with a double change for Bristol City, throwing on Taylor Gardner-Hickman and Anis Mehmeti - and the latter nearly levelled things up against the run of play a few minutes later as he was found through on goal by Tommy Conway, but saw his low attempt kept out well by Ilian Meslier.
And that would be that for Bristol City, as Leeds saw out the win at Ashton Gate that keeps them well in the race for the Premier League.
Bristol City's Liam Manning:
"You have to give Leeds credit for their level of performance. They're the best side we've played so far. You want to then find out what level you're capable of, and the disappointing thing is we're capable of a much higher level.
"The mad bit is we still had one or two terrific moments where we could have nicked something. But conceding so early on at the start of the second half and to such a poor goal made it difficult."
Leeds' Daniel Farke:
"A win is a win and three points is always priceless, especially in a difficult away game during a busy schedule. It was a really good performance today.
"It was nearly a perfect away game and more or less the only thing I can criticise is that on the road you have to score the goals.
"One thing is for sure if we want to celebrate at the end of the season we have to be more ffective when creating big chances."
