August 10 2007
Leeds meeting room..
When Ryan arrived at the meeting room all the players had already arrived, he nodded seeing everyone arriving punctually for the meeting.
The players after seeing Ryan enter all quietened down.
"Good morning lads, I see that all of you have arrived in time for the meeting,i'm quite thankful for that"
" Regarding our approach for tomorrow's game against tranmere I have already said all there is earlier during the training and won't waste your time with any long speeches regarding it."
"Both in terms of our actual player quality as well as in paper we are clearly ahead of tranmere so I would expect nothing but a win in tomorrow's game ." he said letting his gaze roam over the players to see if they were properly listening
"saying that I know all you want to know about the team for tomorrow's game so I won't delay any further and announce the team , our squad for tomorrow's game against tranmere Will be as follows...."
" Goalkeeper : Ankergren "
" Defenders: Richardson, Marques, Koscielny, Alba"
" Midfielders: Prutton , Houson , Douglas(c), whittingham"
" Forwards: Beckford, Lewandoski "
" In bench: Lucas, Parker, Clapham,carole, Hungton ,Flo and Johnson "
"I hope you all will be adequately prepared for tomorrows game"
"The team bus Will depart by 3:00pm so I hope you all will arrive on time.alright I've said everything that needed to be said so you're all dismissed "Ryan concluded.
*******
August 11 2007
Prenton park..
Today the weather was quite gorgeous with blue skies,no wind, ambient temperature.
prenton park stadium had a capacity of 16981 seats among which for today's game there were almost 11000 fans making it almost 65 percent of the stadium capacity.
"Good evening, everyone! today, we're bringing you the very first match of this year's cococola league one between Leeds United and tranmere robbers."
"I'm Roy Spencer, bringing you live commentary for this game alongside me is Nickolas Smith"
"Hello everyone Nickolas Smith here, your take on this game Roy"
"well Nickolas,on paper Leeds seems to be the better team isn't it but this is football performance in paper might not reflect the performance in the field "
"speaking of Leeds they have been the talk of the town recently aren't they, from the club being slapped a 15 point deduction even before the start of the season to the arrival of new owners. "
***
The two captain's Douglas from Leeds and Paul McLaren both arrived beside the referee for the coin toss.
Mclaren won the toss and decided to start the play.
After the coin toss both captains shook each others hand and moved toward their own half.
After that the referee blew the whistle, signalling for the match to begin.
The first few minutes the game was an affair in the middle of the ground with both team unable in managing to hold the ball long enough to make any serious impact .so the first 15 minutes went by without any major events.
After 15 minutes of normal game time Leeds gained some momentum and begin to dominate the play in the tranmere's half.
However penetrating the defence was proving to be more difficult as tranmere had tighten their defence quite well.
Tranmere did get some momentum in the 20th minute though.They were occasionally making their way towards the Leeds half.
At Around the 21st minute Ankergren was challenged for the first time by Tranmere players since the start of the game .
Steve Davis made his way just outside the Leeds box and made a quick shot towards the far corner which was pushed away by the outstretched fingertips of Ankergren.
And just like that Tranmere won the first corner of the game.
Calvin zola stepped up to take the corner. He wipped a teasing ball into the box and found a relatively unmarked Chris Greenarce who headed the ball into the Leeds post.
Cheers erupted for the stands from the home fans as their team had taken a lead of 1:0 against the visiting team.
However the cheer was short lived as Tranmere didn't even got to keep the Leeds for even one minute as Jermaine Beckford equalised the score the very next minute when he scored an absolutely brilliant solo goal. After the goal the game remained seemingly uninteresting with both sides failing to find the net.
Slowly the first half finished with both side scoring one goal each.
*******
When the second half started tranmere opted for a more attacking gameplay which was creating some gaps in between the midfield and Defence of tranmere.
In the 56th minute Robert exploited such gap left by one of the tranmere player and made a solo run through the central midfield.
He picked a loose pass midway and made past the tranmere defense line and quickly found himself at the edge of the box .
The tranmere keeper came out to meet him but before he could get close to the ball,the pole flicked it over him with his right foot into the net 2:1. Leeds finally were leading in the game for the first time.
"GOALLLL"
Robert ran to the sidelines and did a knee sliding celebration. Robert had scored his very first goal for Leeds on his very first game in leeds shirt.
The match restarted soon after.The tranmere players seemed to have received a wake up call after falling behind due to the wide gaps they were creating. They tighten their first a little bit after conciding the second goal, which seems quite effective as the managed to stop Leeds from scoring for the next 20 minutes or so.
In the 86th minute alba produced a superb cross which easily made its way towards lewandoski who was lurking near the tranmere goal post.
Robert kept his cool and let loose a right footed shot which made its way into the tranmere goal scoring his second goal for the whites .
The score then remained at 3:1 for the next 4-5 minutes until the end of the game.
"FWEE FWEE FWEEEEEE"
Along with the whistle of the refree the game came to its end.
Leeds had won their first game beating Tranmere robbers 3:1 away from home and officially opened the Oliver era of Leeds with a win.
***
August 14 2007
Leeds followed their win over Tranmere by thrashing their next opponent,the league two side Macclesfield town 4:0 in the first round of league cup with two goal contribution from both lewandoski and Bradford.
***
The next two league matches for Leeds also went quite smoothly with Leeds beating Southend United in home 4:1 following it with a 3:0 victory over Nottingham forest away from home. Among the goals 4 of the 7 were scored by lewandoski, making the young nineteen year old,currently the top goal scorer in the league.
The young pole was quickly turning out to be a fan favourite in Leeds .
Other new signings except Robert were also proving to be quite good . Among them the excellent crossing ability of alba was turning out to be a game changer as he was providing constant assist in front of the goal for the team.