Daniel Farke stuck with the 5-3-2 system which produced a stirring comeback in defeat at Manchester City at the weekend to make a massive dent in the Stamford Bridge side’s title aspirations.
The deserved victory enabled the Whites to leapfrog West Ham out of the relegation zone ahead of the Hammers' visit to Manchester United last night.
Blues boss Enzo Maresca admitted: “I think they were better than us in all the aspects, they deserved to win the game.”
The Italian made multiple changes to his line-up but still had bags on highly expensive talent on the pitch, only to be rattled by a fired-up Leeds who came flying out of the blocks from the first whistle.
Chelsea had rarely been out of their own half when giant centre-back Jaka Bijol powered a header home from Anton Stach’s corner after only six minutes.
Chelsea were unable to cope with Leeds’ intensity and although they had plenty of possession struggled to make any inroads on United’s defence.
Leeds looked sharper all round the pitch and doubled their lead three minutes before the interval when Ao Tanaka smashed home a glorious right-foot shot past Robert Sanchez into the bottom corner.
Maresca made a host of substitutions including star names Pedro Neto, Cole Palmer, Alejandro Garnacho and Malo Gusto, but only created two big chances. The first was converted by Neto from Jamie Gittens’ cross to reduce the arrears four minutes into the second-half.
Palmer then missed a chance to equalise when he dragged a shot wide after being set up by Garnacho. Two minutes later Leeds made Chelsea pay with a goal which summed up the visitors’ night.
A sleeping Tosin Adarabioyo was robbed in his own box by Noah Okafor and in the ensuing scramble Dominic Calvert-Lewin prodded home the simplest of chances.
Leeds saw out the remaining 20 minutes in relative comfort with their trio of centre-backs rock-solid, while skipper Ethan Ampadu, a former Chelsea player, was the standout performer in his defensive midfield role on an evening when all United’s players were on top of their game.
Leeds had much less possession but made far better use of it than their opponents, who had blown away Barcelona in the Champions League the previous week.
In addition to their three goals, Leeds had another ruled out for offside, while Lukas Nmecha and Pascal Struijk both missed good chances.
When United got forward their twin strikeforce of Calvert-Lewin and Nmecha bullied Chelsea’s backline, giving Farke and his squad renewed hope moving forward after four successive defeats.
Farke, whose team entertain Liverpool tomorrow, said of the Chelsea game: “The players deserved a night like this. To be effective in the moments against this team - to win this game, it was deserved. This is why we wanted to be back in the big time”