11th January 2026. FA Cup 3rd Round.
Making eight changes to the starting XI, many of the changes getting their first starts in months, and playing at least three players out of their normal day-to-day positions was bound to mean Leeds would take a while to find their range today, and, for twenty minutes or more, it looked like we might never find it!
It was a scrappy first half for Leeds, passes going astray, crosses overhit, and several players clearly not on the same wavelength, but the longer it went on, the more ‘together’ we looked and the more dominant we became.
There was more than a touch of déjà vu in the first half. A fierce Joel Piroe shot from an impossible angle grazed a post, and then his penalty was brilliantly saved by the impressive Derby keeper, Jacob Zetterström. Those and other ‘nearly’ moments raised the spectre of many previous 3rd Round cup exits. When Derby then went down the other end and capitalised on some dubious Leeds defending to grab the lead in the 35th minute, it all felt very familiar indeed, and I’m sure most Leeds fans thought the worst and that, yet again, we wouldn’t have a ball in the 4th round draw of the FA Cup. Leeds were bossing the possession and racking up plenty of goal attempts, but it all felt a little bit rough around the edges.
Maybe it just needed time to settle, but whatever it was, Leeds clicked properly into gear in the second half, and the venom with which Willy Gnonto struck the equaliser set the tone for a thoroughly professional demolition of a Derby side that very quickly lost heart, and one backed by a poor home crowd of just 16,741, with 5,000 Leeds fans out singing them. It was a lovely move that belied the fact that these players had little game time together this season; Gruev to Tanaka, first time blind pass to Bijol, Jaka pushed the ball to Joel Piroe, who let the ball go through his legs, and there was Willy G to absolutely thunder a shot past Zetterstrom.
Four minutes after Willy’s thunderbolt, Leeds had a second, and it was another sweet move. Nmecha rescuing the ball on the byline and pulling it back to Okafor, Noah picking out Joel Piroe on the edge of the box, and this time Piroe found the target with another pot-shot. When the annoying Zetterstrom threw himself full-length to stop that one, Ao Tanaka nipped in to tuck the spilt ball into the Derby net. We were finally seeing our players doing what we know they do best, Ao’s party piece being his ability to instinctively know where to be and how to stay alert and cool to such close-range situations.
Inevitably, the nerves jangled a bit towards the end; it would have been entirely in keeping with our 21st-century FA Cup exploits to have suffered the old sucker punch at the end, stutter in extra time, and go out missing all our penalties! But not this time. We held our nerve, and in added time we bagged a third. The returning from injury Sean Longstaff brought the ball out of defence to send Lukas Nmecha away down the left, and he slid the ball across the area and into the path of James Justin, who’d run the length of the pitch to finish neatly.
By the end of the game, this unlikely team selection looked as though it had been playing together for years, and it made it feel as though we do indeed have some strength in depth in the squad, something that has not always been obvious this season.
Now we can sit back and enjoy the novelty of waiting for ball number ‘18’ to be picked out of the famous velvet bag and hope it’s a nice, kind home draw that gives us a chance of a bit of a cup run; we are well overdue for one!
Emirates FA Cup
Derby County 1 (Brereton Diaz 35’)
Leeds United 3 (Gnonto 55’, Tanaka 59’, Justin 90+3')
Derby: Zetterstrom (GK), Forsyth, Batth, Langas, Blackett-Taylor (Brewster 63’), Salvesen (Agyemang 73’), Ward, Brereton Diaz, Travis (C) (Ozoh 63’), Fraulo (Adams 46’), Clark (Eames 73’). Subs not used: O’Donnell (GK), Weimann, Elder, Nelson.
Leeds: Darlow (GK), Ampadu, Piroe (Stach 89'), Nmecha, Bijol, Okafor (Aaronson 89'), Harrison, Tanaka, Bornauw (Justin 46’), Gnonto (Byram 86'), Gruev (Longstaff 73’). Subs not used: Perri (GK), Struijk, Calvert-Lewin, Chambers.
Venue: Pride Park
Attendance: 21,741
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Booked: Fraulo (Derby) Harrison (Leeds)
