Bruce hails Villa’s fightback to deny Leeds
Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce saluted his side’s comeback to claim a point in last night’s big Sky Bet Championship clash at Leeds.
Henri Lansbury came off the bench to earn fourthplaced Villa a 1-1 draw, extending their unbeaten run to four.
The former Nottingham Forest midfielder had not featured since mid-September due to injury and he made up for lost time by firing in his first Villa goal on 71 minutes.
Leeds had led through Pontus Jansson’s header, but they could not match their first-half intensity and had to settle for a point, and a climb to seventh place.
“We know it’s never going to be easy to come here, in front of 30,000, it’s never easy so I suppose you’d take a point,” said ex-Sunderland boss Bruce.
“I was delighted with the response, because we were better in the second half.
“(Jack) Grealish and Lansbury gave us that little bit of impetus, and that’s important because we’ve missed them – they’ve both had big injuries.
“I thought, in the second half, we were much better, and the only team that was going to win it was possibly us.”
Winger Albert Adomah had a left-foot shot comfortably saved by Felix Wiedwald early on but that was as close as Villa went as Leeds dominated the first half.
Leeds were the only Championship team yet to claim a single point from a losing position and the relief was palpable when Jansson nodded in Pablo Hernandez’s inswinging corner at the near post to go ahead on 19 minutes.
Leeds thought they had got the second goal they craved when Liam Cooper headed home, only to be denied by the linesman’s flag.
Lansbury and Jack Grealish were introduced by Bruce and the changes had the desired effect. Neil Taylor and Jansson came together in a crunching tackle and the ball rolled into the path of Lansbury, who drove forward to fire a 20-yarder in off the post.
Leeds boss Thomas Christiansen, after a first draw since August, said: “I was proud and satisfied with the performance – how they understood how we had to face this game against one of the strongest teams in this league.
“In the second half, we did not have the ball so much, we were not so aggressive in the opposite half, we didn’t play in the opposition half and then the goal comes from two rebounds. It’s bad luck.
“One month ago, we would have lost this game because we would have gone up with four, five or six players and forgotten about defending, so that was cleverness from my players to understand that and to take that message.”