Norwich City 2 Leeds Utd 1: Huckerby hounds his former club

Patrick Johnston
Sunday 04 February 2007 01:00 GMT
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This should have been the game where an ailing Leeds United recorded back-to-back victories for the first time since March. But against a Norwich City side, themselves struggling and without Welsh international striker Robert Earnshaw, it proved too grand a task.

This defeat, their 19th of the campaign, left the Yorkshire side with only 16 games to save themselves from dropping into the third tier of English football. "It's not over yet," said an upbeat Leeds manager Dennis Wise. "If we keep performing we will be OK. We will just have to move on to the next game and hope to get a result. I can't ask for any more from the lads, we just need to tidy up on a couple of things on the concentration side, marking for instance. We let a player free for a second and it has cost us and that hurts."

After taking the lead against the run of play through Jonathan Howson, Leeds failed to capitalise. They were content to hang on rather than pursue a second goal. It eventually cost them as first Dion Dublin and then Darren Huckerby struck with two classy efforts in the second half to secure the points. "It's just the small details at certain times," added Wise. "We were quite comfortable most of the way through. It was only when they scored that we seemed to go flat. We are disappointed we haven't got something out of this game."

Norwich manager Peter Grant did not underestimate the importance of this win. "This was a massive win for us. Our boys were very brave."

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