Whites go down tamely at The Den Tim Hodge April 10, 2011 Match reviews 24 Comments A poor performance saw the Whites drop vital points as they went down 3-2 to Millwall at The Den. Jake Livermore came in for Barry Bannan to add some muscle to the middle of the park while Paul Connolly came in at right back and Eric Lichaj moved to left back to replace the injured George McCartney. It was a cagey opening to the game with both sides trying to impose themselves but aside from a couple of corners, neither team had any real opportunities to write home about. That was until Jonny Howson fouled Kevin Lisbie and gifted Millwall a free-kick. James Henry stroked the set-piece past Kasper Schmeichel, whose positioning was suspect. Leeds were still finding it difficult to get into the game and were being terrorised by Millwall’s Spurs loanee, Andros Townsend. The young winger was creating all sorts of trouble and it was his corner that made the day worse for Leeds. Millwall’s Liam Trotter was stood on Schmeichel as the corner swung in and was allowed to tap in from three yards completely unchallenged. Grayson would have been furious at the lack of defending. Townsend continued to look threatening for Millwall while Leeds were unable to get on the ball and when they did, seemed completely devoid of ideas or creativity. Having held out until half time, Somma came on for a disappointing Robert Snodgrass as Grayson looked to reshuffle his side to a 4-4-2 formation. United started the second half much better and managed to snatch a goal back after five minutes through Luciano Becchio. Lichaj’s lofted ball into the area was missed by Somma but it fell kindly for Becchio to poke home. There was still hope and we were more involved in the game than we had been but there was a real need to get the ball down and play it to wide positions like Millwall were doing to us. Max Gradel was receiving little service so was dropping deep to get the ball and as commendable as his efforts were it wasn’t really helping us. However, any hope we had died when Millwall grabbed a third. Bizarrely play seemed to almost come to a halt as everyone expected the referee to blow for a handball but when he didn’t only Steve Morison was awake and was able to dink the ball past Schmeichel one on one. After that Millwall were able to take the sting out of the game and, despite further reshuffling as Bannan and McCormack were brought on, Leeds never really looked like getting back into it. We grabbed a late consolation through Andy O’Brien as his flicked header crept in. That was the final action of the game as the referee blew the final whistle soon after. It’s hard to remain philosophical after such a poor performance and result but we must remember that no matter what happens this season we have overachieved. We’ve slumped to sixth place but are no further from second place than we were before kick-off. Focus now shifts to our remaining fixtures starting away to Derby on Tuesday.