Blackburn Rovers 2-1 Leeds United: Darragh Lenihan heads hosts to victory

Darragh LenihanImage source, Rex Features
Image caption,

Darragh Lenihan scored his first goal since May to give Blackburn victory against Leeds

Leeds United missed the chance to return to the top of the Championship table after Blackburn Rovers held on to win a frenetic contest at Ewood Park.

The hosts led inside two minutes when Danny Graham headed Harrison Reed's corner past goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell.

Leeds, backed by more than 7,700 travelling supporters, equalised from the last play of an end-to-end first half with a superb team move started by Samuel Saiz and finished by Mateusz Klich.

Both teams created chances after the break, but the winner came from another set-piece delivery when Darragh Lenihan nodded home to give Rovers victory.

Klich came close to levelling for a second time as Marcelo Bielsa's team poured forward in the closing stages, but his curling effort was brilliantly tipped over by David Raya.

That save ensured a second successive victory for Blackburn, who have started the season impressively after winning promotion from League One in 2017-18.

Leeds were unbeaten after eight Championship fixtures but, despite again looking impressive going forward, have now won just one of their past five matches.

On the balance of play they deserved a point against Rovers, with Saiz having a shot smartly turned behind before half-time.

Blackburn also had chances to put the result beyond doubt on the counter-attack, but Bradley Dack and the lively Adam Armstrong were both denied by Peacock-Farrell.

Blackburn Rovers boss Tony Mowbray told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"Every three points is huge, it was hard-earned against a really good side and the positive and negative of int break gives cs time to study opposition, so from Tuesday, we had two two intense days and it paid off.

"In the set plays, great credit to David Lowe and Ben Benson who I delegate set-plays to, they recognise that Leeds had two big headers of the ball and we managed to extricate them out of the goal and got Danny Graham through the gap to score and Darragh Lenighan did it in the second-half.

"We were competitive for 90 minutes, we should have got more than one goal in the first-half. We played against a top team, a high-quality team, so it was a big test for us but one we came through and got the points."

Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa told BBC Radio Leeds:

"It's a loss, it's a bad moment, we needed to win this game especially after the draw in the last home game. We didn't defend as well as we used to do.

"The offensive players created difficulties. But we could have avoided the goals they scored.

"Maybe a draw would have reflected better the game, we played better when they were winning and this is a defect."

Sorry, we can't display this part of the article any more.

Related internet links

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.