Albion throw away two leads at Leeds: Leeds 2-2 Brighton photos
It is always an honour to be able to post photos of Brighton & Hove Albion taking on the world’s biggest football club, even when the Seagulls have to settle for a 2-2 draw despite twice leading against The Leeds United.
Alexis Mac Allister opened the scoring in snowy Yorkshire with his ninth goal of the campaign, a deserved reward for Brighton’s domination of the opening 30 minutes which had the home crowd berating their own players.
A mistake from Joel Veltman five minutes before half time allowed The Leeds United to go into the break level. The normally dependable Dutchman lost possession in a dangerous area, Jack Harrison advanced and found Patrick Bamford to fire home from outside the box via a deflection off Adam Webster.
The Peacocks enjoyed their best spell at the start of the second half and it was against the run of play when Brighton took the lead for the second time.
Kaoru Mitoma got to the by-line and his cross pulled back across the face of the Leeds goal was eventually turned into the Peacocks net by Harrison under pressure from Solly March.
The Albion should have wrapped things up after that. Illan Meslier saved at full stretch from a March volley and then nicked the ball off substitute Danny Welbeck with a brave piece of goalkeeping as Dat Guy ran through one-on-one.
Welbeck also should have done better when weaving his way into the box, only to fire high and wide with just Meslier to beat.
Brighton’s miss of the afternoon however belonged to Mac Allister, who somehow managed to skew the ball towards the corner flag with an effort from an unmarked position on the Leeds penalty spot.
Those squandered opportunities proved costly when the Peacocks equalised again. A quickly taken short corner found Harrison and he made his way to the right-hand side of the Albion area to hit a dipping effort over Jason Steele and in.
Steele had kept his place in the side at the expense of Robert Sanchez after recording a clean sheet in last week’s 4-0 win over West Ham United.
Brighton were adamant that there were two balls on the pitch when the corner was played and so the game should not have restarted. In reality, the Albion had fallen asleep at a crucial moment and paid the price.
If you have any photos you would like included in our The Leeds United 2-2 Brighton gallery, please e-mail them to wearebrighton@hotmail.co.uk or tweet them to us @wearebrighton
