Noel Whelan reacts to Leeds’ 3-0 defeat to Wolves

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Leeds United suffered a second consecutive defeat in the Championship as they were beaten by the league leaders at Elland Road.

Noel Whelan spoke to BBC Radio Leeds at full-time of Leeds’ clash with Wolves at Elland Road on Wednesday as Paul Heckingbottom’s men were completely outclassed by the visitors and handed another 3-0 defeat.

Despite the league leaders establishing their control of the game in the early stages, Leeds managed to hold out until just short of the half-hour mark when some lacklustre marking from a corner allowed Romain Saiss to head home from close range.

And Wolves would maintain their dominance after the opening goal and they would get their rewards just before the break. Willy Boly was able to react quickest as Danny Batth’s header came back off the bar and looped into the air to double the lead. If it was not for Peacock-Farrell, the scoreline at the break would have been a lot worse for Heckingbottom’s men.

The early stages of the second-half seemed to be a much more even affair. Peacock-Farrell had much less to do, and Leeds looked slightly more threatening going forward – though they did struggle to create any clear cut chances that would have given the fans hope that the Whites could be about to pull off the same sort of comeback as they had done against Bristol City recently when they were also 2-0 down at the break.

And Wolves would put the game to bed with just under 20 minutes to go when substitute Benik Afobe was played in. The loanee had plenty to do still, but managed to take advantage of Peacock-Farrell’s rash decision to come outside of his box by lifting the ball into the back of the net to make the score 3-0.

The result leaves Leeds nine points off the play-off places, and after the full-time whistle, Whelan assessed the performance from the home side on another disappointing night.

“It wasn’t all firing, it wasn’t all aggressive. It wasn’t without trying but you got to just say, yes, the players aren’t good enough when you come up against players like this,” he told BBC Radio Leeds.

“There’s a gulf in class. There’s a gulf in organisation. There’s a gulf in the way they play, they have an identity to the way they play. They use their wing-backs very, very high. It’s always on. They switch the ball extremely well. They create very quickly from back to front. And we go side to side, we’ve not worked the keeper enough.

“It is very, very difficult to get my head round this result because yes, Wolves are an exceptional side, they’re at the top, they can do pretty much anything on the ball. But I tell you what, are they organised off the ball? Yes they are, massively. They are hard to beat, and if you’re going to beat them, you’ve got to do something real special.”

While the play-off places may still be mathematically in reach, the defeat and the performance surely leaves Leeds’ top six in tatters heading into the final eight games of the campaign.