Jermain Defoe's hat-trick brings battling Leeds United's run to an end

Posted Thursday, February 04, 2010 by theguardian.com

Jermain Defoe's hat-trick brings battling Leeds United's run to an end
Jermain Defoe, centre, bundles in the second of his three goals for Tottenham. They travel to Bolton in the fifth round.

Beating Hartlepool away next Saturday is, in the greater scheme of things, more important to Leeds United than knocking Tottenham Hotspur out of the FA Cup, but no-one who saw this hugely committed and at times frantic cup tie could accuse the United players of harbouring their resources. As at Manchester United in the third round, and 10 days ago at White Hart Lane, the Yorkshire side produced a performance which both belied their League One status and suggested that if they do not get promoted this season, something at Elland Road will have gone very wrong.

After all, they are not going to come up against finishers of the quality of Jermain Defoe, whose hat-trick was his third of the season. The Spurs manager, Harry Redknapp, suggested afterwards that the England striker could have scored six and Bolton, their opponents in the next round, will be wary. But United created plenty of chances, and the result was in doubt until Defoe's third, deep into stoppage time.

Despite their insistence that the pressure was on their opponents, there was scope for the Leeds players to be nervous in front of an impressively raucous full house of more than 38,000. It did not take long for the underdogs to settle, however. Picked out by Michael Doyle, Jonny Howson curled a neat shot 18 inches over the bar, rather closer to the target than Sébastien Bassong's side-footed volley at the other end soon afterwards. On a pitch still greasy after an hour or so of wet snow before kick-off, the pace in the opening period was unrelenting.

Defoe was the next to go close, driving just wide from 18 yards, but again Leeds responded. Leigh Bromby's looping cross should have been an easy gather for Heurelho Gomes inside his own six-yard box, but Jermaine Beckford's remarkable spring saw the striker, who has already scored 24 goals this season, get his forehead above the Spurs goalkeeper's reaching hands. Somehow the ball came back off the bar.

If Gomes was unconvincing, his opposite number, Casper Ankergren, was at his best when Defoe beat the offside trap, getting enough on the shot to divert it wide. The Danish goalkeeper also had to react quickly when Bromby's accidental deflection of Gareth Bale's cross threatened to sneak in at his near post.

So well was Ankergren playing, in fact, that it took a huge slice of fortune for Spurs to beat him. There was nothing lucky about the run and pull-back with which the impressive David Bentley left Defoe free in the penalty area, but a poor first touch meant the subsequent left-foot shot was badly sliced. With Ankergren hopelessly wrong-footed, the ball drifted over Richard Naylor and inside the angle of post and bar.

Stung by the injustice, for the remainder of the half Leeds flung themselves forward. Moments before the break the pressure finally told, when Beckford's swivelling volley was saved by Gomes, but Luciano Becchio followed up to turn the ball over the line.

While lucky not to be ruled out for offside, the equaliser was nothing less than Leeds deserved after the most hectic 45 minutes of football that Spurs must have been involved in for some time, and the half-time message from Redknapp can only have been to calm down and try and impose their superior passing game. For five minutes after the restart they did exactly that, and should have retaken the lead when a sliding Peter Crouch came within inches of turning Nico Kranjcar's cross-shot past Ankergren.

Leeds did their best to up the pace, but the conviction that characterised their first-half efforts was no longer so apparent. Sensing the change Spurs began, if not to relax, to play with a little more belief, and Ankergren had to save well, first from Michael Dawson and then from a rising Bentley drive.

He was beaten shortly after the hour, only for Defoe to be ruled offside, but the tide was increasingly strong, and in the 73rd minute Leeds finally cracked. It was no great surprise that Bentley, on the right, should be the provider with a low driven cross, nor that Defoe, from close range, should provide the finishing touch.

With the crowd finally quietened, the Leeds manager, Simon Grayson, turned to his bench, but the gulf in resources was obvious. Even so, only when Defoe rounded Ankergren in stoppage time could Redknapp relax. "I thought we were very good, we competed ever so well against a top, top team," said Grayson. "Now we have to try and make sure we finish the job we have started in the league. The players are disappointed now, but they should feel a lot better about themselves in the morning, they can be proud of what they have achieved so far this season."