Leeds are not too good to drop, says Gray

Wolves 3 Leeds United 1

United suffered a damaging 3-1 defeat at Wolves yesterday, the only team below them in the Premiership, as Dave Jones’ side won their first league game for two months.

After a run of five games without a loss, taking nine points en-route, Leeds appeared intent on extending that streak when they opened the scoring in the third minute.

However, Michael Duberry’s second goal in four matches was cancelled out in the 18th minute when Alan Smith scored a freak own goal after slicing an awful Henri Camara corner over Paul Robinson.

Wolves were then the stronger side, but did not take the lead until two minutes after the restart when Steffen Iversen headed the home side in front, and, although Leeds rallied, the sending off of skipper Dominic Matteo in the 76th minute effectively ended hopes of a comeback.

With Leeds pouring forward in search of an equaliser, Wolves capitalised in injury time when Iversen doubled his tally for the season by poking home a Camara drive which had rebounded off a post.

Leeds are just three points clear of a Wolves team who have a game in hand and Gray said: “I don’t agree with the assumption that we are too good to go down. Our position in the league says it all. I’m not happy with today’s performance. I felt Wolves deserved to win the game.

“Overall we never passed the ball well and, although I think the boys are working really hard, that is something you have to do if you want to stay up.

“But I would like to think this is just a setback. I hope the players feel like that because that’s how I feel. We’ve got to have the belief to win games and try to climb the table, but every game we play is going to be a battle.

“The players are obviously disappointed with their performance, but that’s pleasing for me because that tells me they know they didn’t perform as they are capable of performing.”

With this victory, Wolves have given themselves a glimmer of hope they can avoid the drop, but it remains a long shot.

Jones, though, was understandably delighted with a result he felt was merited given the level of performance.

“If we had come away with anything less than three points then we would have been disappointed,” he said.

“We did our usual start by giving them an early goal, but you earn your luck in this game, and we got a break with their own-goal.

“After that it was one big wave against them, which we kept going in the second half and we came out of it with another goal.

“They had their 10 minutes, but we weathered it and I’m delighted for the boys because no-one has let their head go down.

“The only thing we didn’t get that I demanded was a clean sheet, but if you look at what they have it wasn’t so long ago they were playing in Europe and everything else.

“We have had to do a good shift against a strong side, but we kept going and now we live to fight another day.”

WOLVES: Oakes, Luzhny, Craddock, Butler, Naylor, Newton (Kachloul 82), Ince, Cameron, Camara, Miller, Iversen.

LEEDS: Robinson, Kelly, Kilgallon, Duberry, Harte, Pennant (Sakho 82), McPhail (Milner 62), Smith, Matteo, Bakke, Viduka.

Referee: A D’Urso (Essex).