Two goals in the space of four minutes in the second half saw a much-transformed Leeds United come from behind to beat Derby County 3-1 at Pride Park and qualify for the fourth round of the FA Cup.
The upset occurred at half-time when Ben Brereton-Díaz put the championship team ahead in the 35th minute, just after Jacob Widell Zetterstrom denied Joel Pillow’s penalty kick.
However, the visitors, who made eight changes from their 4-3 loss to Newcastle United in midweek, took the lead after the interval and deservedly overturned the tie 10 minutes into the second period.
First Wilfried Gonont smashed an unstoppable drive past Derby’s invincible Swedish goalkeeper at his near post after Pirouet’s clever dummy pried open the home team’s defence.
Ben Brereton Dias celebrates after scoring the opening goal in the derby against Leeds
Daniel Farke’s in-form team, including Lucas Nmeka, Noah Okafor and the impressive Piroué, made beautiful, flowing passing moves, but Zetterström simply parried Piroué’s shot from the edge of the area, and the cautious Aoi Tanaka scored the rebound from close range.
Wilfried Gnont celebrates with Ilya Guluev after the equalizing goal
The quick-fire double overcame a Derby side who sit 17th below Leeds in the Football Pyramid, and substitute James Justin stopped a fightback in added time to seal a deserved victory and send the team into Monday night’s fourth-round draw.
What the managers said…
Derby manager John Eustace:
“We thought we really got good value for money and today gave important minutes to a lot of players who needed it.
“We were really competitive and I was happy with the effort. I just wanted the team to be competitive today. I wanted them to win, and of course they did.
Joel Pillow regrets missed chance against Derby
“But the bigger picture is that we have five or six players who really need playing time because they haven’t played at all for the majority of the season.”
Leeds manager Daniel Farke told TNT Sports:
“A lot of compliments to the players. Going back to how we won, we know how difficult games like this are, so I’d say it’s almost a 50-50 game. Of course, the Premier League side, probably the favorites to win, but the Championship side, they didn’t have a midweek game. We had a terribly difficult schedule, we rotated a lot, and they could play in it today.”
Danny Butt and Joel Pillow compete for the ball
“And in front of an excited home crowd. It’s always a difficult game, especially when you miss a lot of chances like we did in the first half, you miss penalties, you hit the inside of the post, you hit the outside of the post, you scored on chances.”
“If that happens, we would have easily lost a game like that. A lot of praise for how mature, disciplined and professional we played this game and were able to turn this game around, it was a really good game and well deserved, so credit to Derby as well, but I think we deserve to go to the next round and I also give a lot of praise to the players.”
