Lee Bowyer scored a second-half winner to crown a man of the match performance and wreck Tottenham's unbeaten home Premiership record this season. Bowyer cast aside his off-field problems once more to hit his 12th goal of the season after Ian Harte's penalty had wiped out Les Ferdinand's 32nd-minute strike on the stroke of half-time, to end a run of nine unbeaten Tottenham matches.
Spurs' bid to set a club record of six consecutive clean sheets in the League could have been in tatters in the first five minutes. Mark Viduka got goal-side of a strangely lethargic Sol Campbell in the opening 60 seconds and the Tottenham skipper appeared to push him from behind. But referee Jeff Winter was unmoved by Leeds appeals for a penalty.
And when Viduka cleverly flicked on Olivier Dacourt's pass to put Robbie Keane in the clear the Irishman put his low shot just near enough to Neil Sullivan for the keeper to push it round a post at full stretch.
In between times, though, Les Ferdinand escaped young cousin Rio, captaining Leeds for the first time since his £15 million move from West Ham, with ease.
Similarly, the regularity with which Bowyer and the industrious David Batty and Dacourt were stretching the Spurs defence encouraged Leeds to a sustained period of supremacy in which Tottenham had to resist a spate of corners and free-kicks.
But with little Sergei Rebrov probing and prompting on the counter. Leeds could never afford to relax their grip on Les Ferdinand. And when they did they were desperately lucky to survive his glancing header after he again eluded Rio to get on the end of Tim Sherwood's long free-kick from the left.
Nigel Martyn could barely believe his luck when the ball bounced back off the post straight to him and he dropped it like a hot potato for a corner.
Three minutes later, though, Rebrov sent Ferdinand steaming in to round the keeper and coolly tuck away his seventh goal of the season.
Just when Spurs were ready to celebrate another clean-sheet half, though, the up-to-then impressive striker-turned-defender Gary Doherty clumsily brought down Bowyer. Harte emphatically rapped home his fifth goal in nine games from the spot.
There was nobody to rescue Spurs through when Bowyer, seizing onto a loose ball after Harte's long throw caused mayhem, drove his shot at goal and Viduka cleverly spread his legs to let the ball go through and beyond the unsighted Sullivan.
TOTTENHAM: Sullivan, Young, Campbell, Sherwood, Davies (Thelwell 45), King, Clemence (Iversen 79), Freund, Doherty, Ferdinand (Etherington 79), Rebrov. Subs Not Used: Walker, Booth. Booked: Sullivan, Freund. Goal: Ferdinand 33.
LEEDS UNITED: Martyn, Harte, Mills, Ferdinand, Matteo, Batty, Bakke (Kewell 45), Dacourt, Bowyer, Viduka, Keane. Subs Not Used: Robinson, Wilcox, Burns, Maybury. Booked: Keane. Goals: Harte 45 pen, Bowyer 57.
Referee: J Winter (Stockton-on-Tees).
