Boss Carlos is a winner again but soft Leeds can’t cut it on their away days
manager. this performance must have brought reassurance to the boardroom.
After an opening 20 minutes when Leeds’s slender Samuel Saiz threatened to dominate with his weaving runs, Wednesday steadied, built and scored the breakthrough goal, which Carvalhal stressed was vital.
Gary Hooper got it on 25 minutes, nipping in with a toe-poke following a tom Lees header from a free-kick taken by Ross Wallace.
Leeds had been a real presence in the game but suddenly disappeared. Joost
van Aken nearly converted another freekick from the influential Wallace, then Kieran Lee ran on to a cute Barry Bannan pass to beat Felix Wiedwald, the Leeds keeper. It was disallowed for offside, though it was onside. The same had happened at 0-0 in Birmingham.
Still, Wednesday kept coming. Steven Fletcher missed a sitter from four yards, but Hooper got his second — his seventh in his last seven games — three minutes before the interval. Again it came from the right, this time from substitute Liam Palmer. Fletcher rose above Luke Ayling to win yet another header. Hooper, lurking, greeted it with one of his own.
Christiansen had overseen a run of six consecutive clean sheets at the start of the season, but Leeds had lost their previous two away games, at Millwall and Cardiff, and they have not yet come back from going behind under the Dane.
Had ezgjan Alioski made it 1-0 during that bright opening, it could have been different. Pierre-Michel Lasogga also hit a post three minutes into the second half and Lee cleared a Pontus Jansson header off the line.
A Leeds goal might have made Wednesday question themselves, but in the space left by the visitors, Bannan and Wallace continued to thrive.
Bannan hit the post with 10 minutes to go and Leeds’s absence of defensive aggression told again when Lee made it 3-0 with a fine 20-yard drive 60 seconds later. There was still time for Hooper to crash another effort on to the bar.
The bar was where Wednesday fans headed in celebration, in contrast to last Sunday. For Leeds, this was sobering.