Leeds United vs Wolverhampton Wanderers. Sky Bet Championship.
Elland RoadAttendance26,434.
Thursday 8 March 2018 06:36, UK
Wolves won 3-0 at Leeds to restore their six-point lead at the top of the Sky Bet Championship on Wednesday.
Romain Saiss, Willy Boly and substitute Benik Afobe all scored as Wolves ended their three-game winless run and got their title bid back on track.
Leeds, meanwhile, now have just one win in six games under Paul Heckingbottom and stay 13th in the table, nine points off the play-off places.
Wolves' first-half goals were set up via the set-piece wizardry of Barry Douglas. His first corner in the 28th minute was defended poorly by Leeds, who left Saiss unmarked from six yards to power a header into the bottom corner. His second in the 45th was crashed onto the bar by Danny Batth, before Boly rose highest to nod home the rebound.
Goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell could consider himself unlucky to have conceded twice after a solid first-half display in just his second appearance for Leeds, as he made a couple of impressive saves to keep Wolves from extending their lead even further.
The home side were also unfortunate to lose captain Liam Cooper to injury between the two Wolves goals, as he injured his knee by colliding with team-mate Gaetano Berardi.
Leeds improved in the second half but struggled to threaten the Wolves goal, and substitute Afobe sealed the victory with his first goal since returning to the club, after 74 minutes.
Diogo Jota sent the ball over the top for the advancing striker, and Afobe got in behind the Leeds defence before dinking it over the onrushing Peacock-Farrell from the edge of the area.
Not always the star man for Wolves, N'Diaye was brilliant in the middle of the park as they physically and technically dominated Leeds throughout the 90 minutes.
Paul Heckingbottom: "The goals we conceded were poor, two set-plays and a long ball through the middle. When Wolves did play well they cut through us a couple of times and Bailey made some good saves, but when the goals don't come from that it's really poor from our point of view. That's the disappointing part.
"The gap to the play-offs is huge but we want to be competing against those teams. We've played all the teams above us in the first few games I've been here and we've come up short. We're not on their level and that's what we have to work towards."
Nuno: "We don't answer anybody it;'s about us. It's a commitment with us that we have to have and today the boys had it, they proved themselves that this is a team. I'm very proud of them it was a fantastic game.
"We knew we had to perform better today and today we did it. We showed ourselves this is the way, the boys played with intensity, we were aggressive and showed quality with the ball."
Both sides are back in Sky Bet Championship action on Saturday. Leeds visit Reading at 3pm and Wolves travel to Aston Villa for the evening kick-off, which is live on Sky Sports Football from 5.15pm.
