Leeds advance in the Carabou Cup with dominant City Ground display
Wednesday, 26th Aug 2026 10:25 by Tim Whelan
Leeds away wins at Nottingham Forest are like the buses. You wait over 50 years for one, and then two come along at once. Three days after starting the league season with victory at the City Ground, Leeds have now advanced to the third round of the Carabou Cup.
Daniel Farke made six changes to his starting line-up, but the incoming players included the new signing Elvedi, and five players who had all featured in the Premier League last season, a definite sign that our manager is taking this competition seriously. Forest also had a strong line-up, but were missing their star man Morgan Gibbs-White through injury.
The game took a while to get going, and Forest had the better of the opening 15 minutes, with Trafford having to be alert to deal with a sliced attempt at a cross from Aina that could have flown past him into the net. And Justin had to react quickly to get back and clear a Jesus header off the line.
But gradually Leeds started to look the more threatening side, with Dan James enjoying plenty of space down the right, as the Forest defence struggled to implement Oliver Glasner’s new system of three at the back. That’s what comes with a rapid turnover of managers, with Willams struggling with his unfamiliar wing-back role and leaving James plenty of room to get in behind him.
The trouble was that we seemed to lack a cutting edge to be able to exploit the crosses that James kept providing. On an evening when you would expect the squad’s fringe players to want to make the most of their chance to impress, Nmecha looked a bit off his game. He put one chance over the bar, then tried a clever flick between his legs that ended up going some way wide.
Longstaff also scuffed a very good chance from, though I thought James had pulled the ball back slightly too far towards him. And Forest’s best chance of the half came when one of our attacks broke down and Chris Wood was played though on goal, only for Rodon to come racing across to make a goal-saving tackle.
The pattern continued in the second half, except that Leeds managed to take the lead only five minutes after the break. Forest lost possession as they tried to play out from the back, and their defence was still out of shape when Longstaff’s excellent ball found James racing into the area on the right. The Welshman took a touch to steady himself, then made no mistake as he lifted the ball over the advancing Sels.
Forest came close to a quick equaliser with a powerful shot from Wood that Trafford did well to get down to to turn away, and before the ball had gone out of play we came close to extending our lead at the other end. Okafor cut in from the left, but his shot didn’t quite curl enough, and ended up going just past the far post.
On the hour mark Glasner brought a few of his first choice players off the bench in an attempt to get back into the tie, and for a while they began to enjoy a bit more of the possession. So Farke decided to counter by strengthening our side with a few more big names, so Wilson, Aaronson and Stach all took to the field.
And with our dominance of the game suitably re-established, we went onto to double our lead in bizarre fashion in the 75th minute. A goalbound header was just cleared off the line while Nmecha collided with a defender, then the big German swung his leg at the ball and missed it completely, so it was left to Justin to knock it over the line, with the ball hitting Nmecha on it’s way into the net.
If VAR had been in use for this round the game would have stopped for several minutes while they studied that goal, with so much to unpack. Technically it would have been offside if the ball had hit Nmecha before it had crossed the line, but our photo above suggests it didn’t. The goal was credited to Justin, which might have been diplomatic.
There was still time for the home side to get back into the game, but they never looked like doing so, even with the aid of six minutes of injury time. ‘Ole’s started to ring out from the Leeds end whenever we managed to string more than two passes together, and the only enthusiasm from Forest towards the end came from a lone pitch invader.
The remaining Forest fans either left before the end or stayed to the end just to boo their team off, in marked contrast to the celebrations taking place in front of the Leeds section of the crowd. It might have been a fairly abject performance from Forest, but this result showed plenty of promise for the season we have ahead of us.
The draw for the third round will be broadcast on Sky Sports at about 10.15 after this evening’s live match. I for one will be tuning in with the very batest of bated breath.
Reuters
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