Leeds deny Blackburn top spot

Blackburn Rovers' hopes of resuming the game of leapfrog with Manchester United at the top of the Premier League, which eventually brought the championship to Ewood Park three seasons ago, were stalled yesterday when they lost a frenetic bout of snakes and ladders to Leeds United.

For the second time this season, Ewood found itself knee-deep in goals, all seven arriving in the opening 32 minutes. Three weeks earlier, Blackburn had led Sheffield Wednesday 5-1 at half-time and gone on to win 7-2. Yesterday, Leeds, having established a 4-3 lead, organised themselves better defensively in the second half and especially during the last 12 minutes after Harry Kewell, their 18-year-old Australian winger, had been sent off.

Blackburn's first defeat under Roy Hodgson leaves them in second place in the Premiership, three points behind Manchester United. Leeds have shot up from 17th to ninth after ending a run of three successive defeats, and no goals scored, with an imaginative attacking performance to mark George Graham's first year in charge at Elland Road.

Had the game continued in the vein of the opening half-hour the result would have looked more like a rugby score. During this period the defending was mutually inept. The shortcomings at the back were even more ruthlessly exposed by the fact that each team possessed quick, skilful forwards who could dart between wooden defenders - Rod Wallace and Jimmy Hasselbaink for Leeds, Martin Dahlin and Kevin Gallacher for Blackburn.

The eccentricities of the defending were at times reflected in the refereeing of Steve Dunn, who seemed far more ready to book and dismiss players than award some of the season's more obvious penalties. Perversely, the one Dunn did give was rather more questionable than those he refused.

The match included a grim little cameo involving Robert Molenaar, Leeds's Dutch defender, and Chris Sutton. Molenaar fouled Sutton consistently and was eventually cautioned a few seconds after hurting a knee in a tackle with the same player. Molenaar stayed off for the second half. Had he stayed on Leeds would surely have found themselves a man short rather sooner than they did.

The game was entertaining because both teams committed themselves to attack. Yet the freedom with which the goals were swapped did nothing to dispel the feeling that much of the defending in the Premier League is way below the standards of the old First Division. Those climactic encounters between Leeds and Liverpool in the days of Don Revie and Bill Shankly, when goals had to be winkled out of clam-like defences, were never like this.

Nevertheless, yesterday's spectacle was entertaining in its madcap sort of way and several of the goals were superbly taken. Only the first, which arrived in the third minute when Wallace pounced after Tim Flowers had failed to hold Hasselbaink's downward header, could even be partly blamed on a goalkeeper, and the long crossfield pass from Gunnar Halle which sent Kewell to the left-hand byline for the centre was memorable in itself.

Poor Blackburn marking at a corner allowed Molenaar to increase Leeds's lead three minutes later, but the Dutchman's halfvolley was excellent. Within a minute Gallacher had met Molenaar's clearance to beat Nigel Martyn with a resounding shot from 30 yards. On the quarter-hour Molenaar appeared, for once, to be the innocent party as Dahlin fell over trying to turn him. But the penalty was given and Sutton brought the scores level. Later more obvious fouls in the area on Dahlin, by Halle and Molenaar, along with Colin Hendry's trip on Wallace at the other end, went unpunished.

In the 17th minute Kewell's run at the Blackburn defence left Wallace to take the ball square before regaining Leeds the advantage with yet another outstanding shot. Five minutes after that Hasselbaink drew the Blackburn defence on to him as one man, before slipping the ball to an unmarked David Hopkin who restored his team's two-goal lead.

When Dahlin scored Blackburn's third two minutes past the half-hour, spinning off Molenaar to beat Martyn after Bohinen, half-falling, had still managed to lay the ball into the Swede's path, Ewood began anticipating a famous Blackburn victory. But with Lucas Radebe back alongside David Wetherall in defence after Molenaar had given way to Bruno Ribeiro, the Portuguese midfielder, Leeds looked much tighter at the back than they had all afternoon.

Even after Kewell, harshly booked in the first half for a foul on Gallacher, had been dismissed for time-wasting at a free kick, Blackburn still could not open up Leeds as they had done earlier. Hodgson thought Blackburn deserved something from the match but Leeds were rewarded as much for ability to adjust as their sudden display of marksmanship.

Blackburn: Flowers, Kenna, Hendry, Gallacher, Sutton, Dahlin, Wilcox (Duff 72), Bohinen (Sherwood 72), Flitcroft, Valery (Andersson 81), Henchoz. Subs Not Used: Broomes, Fettis. Booked: Henchoz. Goals: Dahlin 33, Gallacher 8, Sutton 16 pen.

Leeds: Martyn, Kelly, Robertson, Radebe, Wetherall, Wallace, Hasselbaink (Lilley 80), Hopkin, Halle, Kewell, Molenaar (Ribeiro 45). Subs Not Used: Haaland, Bowyer, Beeney. Sent Off: Kewell (78). Booked: Hopkin, Molenaar, Kewell, Robertson, Radebe, Hasselbaink. Goals: Hopkin 23, Molenaar 6, Wallace 3, 17. Att: 21,956

Referee: S W Dunn (Bristol).