Beckford brace forces replay

Leeds United continued their FA Cup heroics with a hard fought draw at White Hart Lane.

Leeds twice came from behind to earn a replay at Elland Road and another game in an already crowded fixture list.

Tottenham came out all guns blazing and if not for the heroics of Casper Ankergren and some last ditch defending the game could have been over inside twenty minutes.

Ankergren was again in inspired form following his masterful display at Manchester United in the last round.

The big Dane pulled off a string of saves in the first ten minutes, the biggest when he dived low to his left to keep out a Jermaine Defoe penalty.

After weathering the storm Leeds began to play their football and Snodgrass twice went close inside a minute, firstly his curling right foot shot was destined for the corner of the net but a full stretch Gomes pushed it out for a corner.

From the resulting corner, the ball fell to Snodgrass inside the box and his stinging drive was blocked by Bale in the Spurs defence.

Jermaine Beckford who has been in the spotlight since the third round win was also beginning to cause the Spurs back line a few problems.

After some poor defending by Dawson, Beckford found himself one on one with Bassong but he screwed his left foot shot wide of the post.

A few minutes later he was once again put through, this time Gomes saved his stinging left foot volley at full stretch.

Spurs wide men had been getting behind the defence on regular intervals during the first half and after another Bale run down the left found Kranjcar on the edge of the box, his shot was only blocked by Ankergren by his feet and the rebound went straight out to Crouch who fired past the grounded keeper.

The hosts went in 1-0 up at half time and on reflection it was the least they had deserved but Leeds had shown enough in the half to suggest the tie was far from over.

Leeds were back in the tie within ten minutes of the restart following a Snodgrass corner, after a scramble inside the six yard box, that man Beckford was once again in the right place to swivel and shoot under Gomes.

Leeds were beginning to take the game to Spurs and Snodgrass was unlucky after an excellent interchange between him and Kilkenny, his left foot shot going just wide of the post.

Kilkenny was next to try his luck from range and his shot was saved by Gomes.

The Leeds central midfield of Kilkenny and Doyle were beginning to take hold of the game and Spurs boss Redknapp brought on Palacios in the centre in place of ex Leeds youngster Rose who was playing out wide to try to stop the flow.

Another substitute for Spurs was to fire the hosts back into the lead within a few minutes of coming on.

Roman Pavlyuchenko who had just come on guided the ball past Ankergren after a good flowing move.

The goal seemed to knock the stuffing out of Leeds and Spurs looked the more likely side to add a third.

Leeds gave it one last push as the game entered the final few minutes and the introduction of Becchio up front and the speedy White on the left hand side started to cause Spurs a few problems.

Leeds were given renewed hope when Alan Wiley who had given us nothing all afternoon somehow found five minutes of 'Fergie Time`.

Jermaine Beckford had a shout for a penalty turned down when he went down under a challenge from Michael Dawson, Wiley turned down the appeals on what looked like a good decision by the official.

Moments later though he did point to the spot, this time Dawson`s challenge on Beckford wasn`t quite so well timed and Wiley after a few moments of hesitation pointed to the spot.

This sent the travelling Leeds fans into a frenzy, but after finally calming down a few realised that Leeds record from the penalty spot in the past few seasons hasn`t been very good.

Jermaine Beckford who had missed his last two from the spot for Leeds composed himself before firing his kick high into the left hand side of the net and send the 4,000 plus travelling support wild.

Moments after the restart Wiley blew the whistle for full time and once again, the Leeds United FA Cup rollercoaster shows no sign of stopping.

Overall Leeds will feel that their performance after getting a good working over for the first twenty minutes merited at least a replay.

The only down side is it`s another game for the whites in an already packed fixture list, the replay will take place at Elland Road on February 2nd and will now mean that the side will have to play 12 games in 42 days.

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