Despite taking the lead at fellow strugglers Nottingham Forest, the Whites slid to a damaging 3-1 loss on a Remembrance Sunday to forget.
After 11 games Daniel Farke’s men are stuck in 16th place after back-to-back away defeats, just a point above Burnley and West Ham and two ahead of Forest with Wolves marooned at the bottom with only two points.
Sunday’s game at the City Ground was an opportunity for Leeds to put clear daylight between them and their hosts.
After weathering an early flurry of Forest attacks, Leeds got their noses in front on 13 minutes, Brenden Aaronson slipping the ball through to Lukas Nmecha who drilled in an angled shot into the bottom corner.
Nmecha was only playing because regular striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin was not deemed fit enough to start because of an abductor strain. It was Nmecha’s first goal since his penalty in the opening fixture of the season gave Leeds victory, but at Forest it proved a false dawn.
The lead lasted two minutes. Dan Ndoye sent in a low cross from the right which Lucas Perri could only parry into Ibrahim Sangare’s path who netted from a similar position from which Danny Welbeck had put Brighton ahead in the 3-0 win against Leeds the previous week.
Forest continued to be the better side in a scrappy encounter while Leeds, apart from occasional bursts by Noah Okafor and Gabriel Gudmundsson, posted little attacking threat.
Nmecha, despite his well-taken early goal, struggled to hold up the ball and was bullied by the Reds backline, while Aaronson again showed his propensity to win possession and promptly lose it.
Although they were struggling for any kind of fluency, Leeds still had a point in their grasp only to have it ripped away by Sean Dyche’s substitutes around the hour mark. Striker Taiwo Awoniyi was an upgrade on Igor Jesus, the man he replaced, while speedster Omari Hutchinson started to create chaos down Leeds’ left flank.
It was Hutchinson who delivered the perfect cross for the unmarked Morgan Gibbs-White to flick a header beyond Perri on 68 minutes.
Farke, coming in for increasing criticism from a section of United’s support, responded with a triple change. One of the new men, Dan James, drew a fine save from Matz Sels on 78 minutes with what was United’s only effort on target since they scored.
Meanwhile Hutchinson was having a field day against another replacement, stand-in left-back Jack Harrison, who brought the former Ipswich flyer down to enable Elliot Anderson to seal the points from the spot in stoppage time to give the scoreline a more realistic look.
Farke said: “There were a few details where we were not good enough. After a really good start … we should do more than to give this away so cheaply, we should have been more on it, more pressure on the ball, in the duel.”