Once again, it was a game that had a bit of everything - no one can accuse Blues of not being involved in exciting football matches this season. Ultimately though a disastrous defensive performance wiped out the good work that Blues did at the other end of the pitch and gave Steve Bruce plenty to think about.
I tend to describe Bruce's team selection referring to the previous game (logical, huh?), but seeing as he mixes things up a bit in the Carling Cup, please think all the way back to the Ipswich game of 7 days ago, and the team we fielded then. Marcos Painter's more defensive tendancies got him the nod over Seb Larsson at left-back, whilst Martin Taylor replaced the suspended Bruno N'Gotty and Nicklas Bendtner returned to partner DJ Campbell up front at the expense of Cameron Jerome.
So, blimey, what a 90 minutes - this could take a while... bear with me...
Leeds started the better of the two sides - looking like a side whose manager had just been sacked and wanting to prove a point to any potential new boss, which, ironically, is exactly the situation they're in. For five minutes or so Blues were chasing shadows as Leeds set about their business brightly, causing a few murmurs amongst the 16,000 or so 'best fans in the country' that had bothered to turn up.
Blues' first chance came courtesy of Gary McSheffrey, who cut inside from the left and hit a sweet right-foot drive that cannoned back off the crossbar. It was a fine effort, but I couldn't help wondering why he didn't carry the ball a bit further, as he seemed to have plenty of space ahead of him. Anyway, Leeds broke away and scored from that.
Damien Johnson was (possibly harshly) adjudged to have handled an Eddie Lewis cross at close range, and the American winger took the free-kick himself. The Blues players did their job well enough to prevent any Leeds attackers getting their head on the free-kick, but they just decided to ignore some David Healy character (he only got a hat-trick against Spain the other week - not a threat at all...) who was loitering towards the far post hoping for such an eventuality. Sure enough the ball reached him and given that he was in about as much space as you can get on a football field, and given that he's really quite good at finishing, he slammed the ball home well to make it 1-0.
This shook Blues into action as they immediately pressed for an equaliser - and they didn't have to wait long. Following a corner Blues kept the pressure on Leeds, and after Mehdi Nafti miscued a shot the ball fell to Martin Taylor whose shot hit the post, hit Tony Warner and went in to level things up.
In the early stages Blues' defending had looked about composed as a Ben Thatcher challenge, and this came back to haunt them within a couple of minutes of their equaliser. Painter - who had looked the dodgiest out of all of the back four - got caught hopelessly out of position and got the wrong side of former Blues striker Geoff Horsfield in the penalty area. The young Irish defender challenged Horsfield from behind, and whilst Horsfield's fall to the turf was slightly exagerated (to say the least) it was a challenge that a defender should know not to make. There was contact, it was clumsy, and you'd be very angry at your striker if he didn't go down under the circumstances. A penalty was awarded, Healy stepped up after a brief chat with his Northern Irelend team-mate Maik Taylor, and duly thumped the ball past him into the back of the net.
Things didn't really settle down too much for the rest of the half, but there were no more goals anyway. Both Leeds and Blues each looked like they'd score everytime they went forward, partially down to the fact that both sides were playing pretty well offensively, and also down to the fact that both sides looked shocking defensively. I can't remember all the first half chances, but there were quite a lot - Campbell had a goal disallowed for using his arm though. In fairness to Blues, you couldn't knock what they were doing as an attacking force - McSheffrey in particular looked excellent again - it was just the shambles at the back that was costing them.
Painter in particular really struggled, although as I've said many a time, he is a centre half, and bringing a youngster into the team in his own position can be hard enough, but then playing him somewhere and expecting him to do a job that's alien to that which he performs so well for the Reserves is asking a lot. He's a decent enough, traditional centre half type - a bit like John Terry (nowhere near as good, but in a similar mould - not only facially). Would John Terry be as good a right-back as he is centre half? Clearly not. Although both positions are in the back four, the duties are substantially different.
Leeds also started the second half brightly, as Blues came out from half-time looking half asleep as usual - what does Steve Bruce say to them? They gradually woke themselves up though, and got back into the match. Bendtner should have done better with a header from a McSheffrey (surprise!) cross, before having a decent penalty appeal of his own turned down. He followed the precedent set by Horsfield in throwing himself to the ground after a clumsy challenge, but Bendtner's collapse to the turf wasn't quite as aesthetically pleasing as that of Horsfield's, so he didn't get the penalty.
The game finally started to slow down a little (Horsfield having a goal disallowed for offside aside) until with about twenty minutes to go Johnson obviously decided he'd had enough of that, and seeing as Blues hadn't had anyone sent off for at least a week, as captain Johnson took it upon himself to spark a mass brawl by doing something to a Leeds player. You might be able to tell from that description that I didn't see the incident itself, but judging by the reaction of the Leeds players, I suspect that Johnson murdered someone. It all kicked off anyway, and having not seen the incident at all, I feel well placed to say it was a complete moment of madness by Johnson. He got his marching orders (perhaps a few red cards a season makes him feel good about himself?) and Blues were down to ten men, and it was comedy season when it came to Blues' formations again. Like last week against Ipswich, Blues were down to ten men whilst chasing the game, so they went with a sort of 3-3-3 formation, which was lovely.
Still, we all know how good Blues are at managing to score whilst playing a 3-4-2/3-3-3/3-1-5 formation having been reduced to ten men, and once again they didn't disappoint. Bendtner showed his class (again) by taking on several Leeds players and then shooting from an angle where he should have been given a stern talking to for not crossing. This is 'Danish Teen Striking Sensation' Nicklas Bendtner we're talking about though, so his shot obviously went in through Warner's legs. Warner looked a tad dodgy all afternoon.
With only central defenders and attacking players on the pitch, Blues had to try out another formation/arrangement of players now - it's such fun seeing what we'll come up with next! Martin Taylor had been forced off with an injury earlier, so his replacement Olivier Tebily went to right-back, Rahdi Jaidi and Painter in the middle, with striker/winger McSheffrey trying his hand at the left-back role whilst Nicklas Bendtner had a go on the right-wing - all cracking stuff. Cameron Jerome came on to replace Campbell and made about as good an impression as those on the trailers for that new Channel 4 'Star Stories' programme.
Blues now looked a little ragged, possibly down to the fact that, 1) they only had ten men; 2) they had three central defenders, four (very) attacking midfielders and two strikers on the pitch, which didn't give them a lot of balance; 3) they wanted to hold on to a point; 4) they knew Leeds were dodgier than Sam Allardyce's son (allegedly) at the back so perhaps fancied they could possibly win it, and 5) no one really knew where they were playing. By now Larsson (who'd replaced Nafti when Blues were 2-1 down) was having a crack at right-back and Tebily had gone back into the centre with Jaidi.
Getting Tebily back into the heart of the defence proved to be a masterstroke, as it meant he was on hand to power a header home to win the game 3-2. For Leeds. Quite what he was doing, I don't know, but given that we're talking about a player who never knows what he's doing himself, I'm not going to try and guess either. Ex Villa midfielder Steve Stone crossed and Tebily attacked the ball as viciously as Damien Johnson attacks Leeds players and found the top corner with his head. It was a fine, fine finish. It was at the wrong end, like, but nevermind. It capped off a sensationally bad defensive performance by Blues.
Blues then had to resort to some kind of 1-3-2-1-2 formation to try and get another equaliser, but were unable to do so, and that was that.
So, in conclusion, I think the world's going mad. Basically, Blues were very good going forward (two goals away from home = good). At the back though, they were beyond shocking - quite what happened I have no idea. Did we miss Bruno N'Gotty? I don't know the answer - it's just a rhetorical question. The fact is that Leeds had to take advantage of Blues being so bad, and they did, so fair play to them. They weren't exactly rock solid at the back either though, and a phrase oft-muttered in the away end during the 90 minutes was "there for the taking", and they were really. So were Blues though, and Leeds took Blues better than Blues took Leeds (that made no sense, did it?) Like I say, scoring twice at Elland Road isn't bad, but when you defend as Blues did today, they were lucky it was no more than three against them.
Things HAD to be addressed pre-season and as the season began, and some things have - let's not go too overboard on the negatives. The fact is that Blues, at times, look very, very good going forward - there's no doubting that the attacking side of their play has improved 42642%. Has it come at too much of a cost though? Blues have conceded 5 goals in their last two league games now, and no side will get promoted (or even close) doing that.
As for these bloody sendings off - for God's sake, can't we sort that out?! We're currently averaging one red card every two league games (if you ignore the Stoke game, which it's best to - it was rubbish). Again, you're going to struggle to get close to promotion with that sort of disciplinary record - Blues keep getting away with it (well, until today, and they nearly did then too), but that won't carry on. They've all been such preventable red cards too - not one has been a good old fashioned 'professional-foul-on-a-striker-as-he's-clean-through-on-goal' red card - they've all been petty, spitting the dummy out dismissals. It's not just the game itself that it effects either - we're missing players for subsequent games as a result. How will Blues get by without talismanic skipper Damien Johnson for three games now? I dread to think...
Anyway, whilst the attacking side of things can't be knocked, it's only serving to highlight other areas that need addressing. You can't just sort one thing out and abandon other things. Bruce has been criticised for being too defensive in the past, so credit him with addressing the attacking side of things, but he needs to take responsibilty too for appearing to not be able to get the balance right - we'd be better off drawing 0-0 than losing 3-2. Maybe that's what he means when he says he can't win with the fans? There has to be a balance though, and that needs to be found. Blues found it at QPR away, and that performance should be the standard, because there's too many worrying signs creeping in now.
You cannot keep getting men sent off for stupid things and you cannot keep giving away stupid, sloppy goals, because no matter how good you are going forward, if you do keep doing those things you'll get nowhere fast.