When Leeds battled to an impressive home win over high-flying Derby County last month we seemed to be on our way up the table. But all we have to show for the five games since is a single, rather fortunate point at Forest.

Despite the attractions of watching the game elsewhere on live TV the match still managed to attract Derby's biggest crowd of the season to date, as 31,690 braved the falling temperatures, a sure sign that the rivalry between the two clubs that began in the early 70s still lingers on. This included 2,236 hardy Leeds fans, who kept cheering the team throughout and deserved far better than the shambles that developed in front of them on the pitch.

The players took the field wearing black armbands for our recently departed former chairman Leslie Silver. After the Wigan defeat Redfearn made two changes to the starting line-up, bringing Austin and Doukara in for Tonge and Sharp. But he was forced into another change after only eight minutes, as Warnock went over on his ankle when challenging Christie in the corner, and couldn't continue. Beradi came on and had to play on the wrong flank, but managed to put in a solid performance on the left hand side. Derby produced more of a threat down their left, where Byram struggled to contain the lively Ibe, who was impressive aprert from his laughable attempt to win a penalty by throwing himself to the floor after a very slight contact from Bellusci.

But we held Derby at bay during a rather dull opening 40 minutes, and we even had a surging run from Lewis Cook to lift our spirits, though he lost possession on the edge of the Derby box while trying to go through their whole team, when he should have played a simple pass to Byram. As the interval approached I dared to start thinking that we could be pleased to go in at half time with the scores level, so you can blame me for what happened next.

Will Hughes went past a couple of players as he bust into the area from the Derby left, before hitting a low ball accross the face of goal. Mowatt found it to close to him and couldn't adjust his feet in time to avoid sidefooting it into the net with his right foot instead of whacking it clear with his left, and we suffered our second own goal in successive games.

That seemed to deflate our spirits, and Derby could twice have gone further in front before half time. Silvestri pushed a header from Keogh over the bar and then from the corner he fumbled a fierce drive by Ibe, but grabbed hold of it at the second attempt.

And it took only two minutes of the second half before Derby really did double their lead from a corner. There was a lot of movement from their forwards before it came over which obviously confused our defence, and Buxton nipped in front of Doukarra to head the ball home. For such a big man, it's surprising how little Doukarra manages to impose himself in the air.

And the rest of the game continued in a similar vein, with Derby having most of the possession, and Silvestri having to make a couple of further saves to keep the scoreline respectable. We made a couple of substitutions to get back into the game, with Sharp replacing Doukarra and Adryan coming for Bianchi. The Brazilian was booed by the Derby fans who remembered his dying swan act at Leeds and he made a couple of lively runs, but wasn't able to change the overall course of the game.

In the closing stages we kept trying to go forward, but over the whole ninety minutes we didn't manage to have one single worthwhile shot on goal, at least not at the right end. Finally the referee put us out of our misery with the final whistle, and the players truged off in despair while our fans tried to re-assure them that despite everything "we all love Leeds".

The result leaves us in a precarious position just above the relgation positions, and in our current form we have to wonder where the next point is coming from. We deserve a lot better than this.

Photo: Action Images

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