Post-Brentford shooting practice clearly paid off last night as Leeds thrashed Tranmere away by four goals to one. The game wasn’t quite as one-sided as the scoreline suggests and this was a more confident Ttanmere team than early in the season, spurred on by their recent victory over Southampton.

The major difference between the Tranmere and Brentford match wasn’t the quality of opposition. If anything, Tranmere probably caused more of a threat than Brentford did, who simply came to Elland Road and parked the bus. The change from Saturday was quite simply what Leeds did with all the chances they created.

On Saturday Leeds squandered a ridiculous amount of chances. Brentford got a goal totally against the run of play and Leeds were left chasing the game. At that point the scoreline read 0-1, but it could quite easily have been 4-1 if Leeds had been a little more clinical infront of goal and showed more urgency to get ahead.

It was clear early on that there would be no such problems tonight as Leeds set out to right the wrongs of Brentford and get their promotion campaign back on track. Robert Snodgrass opened the scoring after just nine minutes and Beckford doubled the lead just seven minutes later from the spot.

Leeds had the momentum and looked confident once more, but Tranmere had other ideas and pulled one back just three minutes later after Leeds failed to clear their lines. Less than 20 minutes gone and already 2-1.

When confidence is so slow and everything is going against you, conceeding a goal at that stage could have led to a ten men behind the ball approach from a lot of teams, but Leeds pressed on and restored their two goal advantage ten minutes before the break. Luciano Becchio the scorer with a diving header from Jermaine Beckford’s cross.

The final goal of the game came midway through the second half sealing the three points for Leeds United courtesy of Jermaine Beckford. The confidence levels had clearly and visibly risen by this point, so much so that Beckford finished off Tranmere with a cheeky well-taken lob.

The ups

“Thankyou for your fantastic support” – The fans, as always, were brilliant.

Shooting practice – I know I’m stating the obvious a bit here, but getting four goals in one game is some achievement when you look back and consider the amount of chances we’ve squandered over the last few weeks.

Beckford – Gets a lot of stick whenever things are going badly. Tends to be the one singled out for the criticism of every fan up and down the country, so perhaps he should take all the praise when we win? Two goals and an assist, not a bad shift in my book.

The substitutions – Still can’t see what Paul Dickov’s bringing to the party, but the introduction of Max Gradel and Tresor Kandol late on was much more positive than we’ve seen in recent weeks.

The downs

Their goal – All that really sticks in mind is their goal which came after several amateurish attempts to clear the ball from Leeds. A bit of panic in the box, the ball flew around wildly and eventually someone stabbed it across the line. Poor, but we can afford the odd mistake when we’re scoring fluently. On another week, that goal would have probably cost us points.