Alan Shearer has hailed the efforts of Leeds United forward Joe Gelhardt after the 20-year-old produced a moment of genius to help the Whites bag a 1-1 draw against Brighton & Hove Albion. Heading into the dying embers of the contest, Leeds trailed 1-0 after Danny Welbeck struck in the first half, with Jesse Marsch's side desperately needing to take something away from Elland Road against Brighton.
A clipped ball into the box in the 92nd minute from Diego Llorente saw Gelhardt dummy Brighton defender Lewis Dunk before chipping the ball over his trailing leg to deliver a pinpoint cross into the path of Pascal Struijk who headed home to send Elland Road wild.
It was a piece of skill that took sheer raw ability to produce and supreme confidence to execute given how little time was left in the game. And Shearer was struck by how impressed he was with Gelhardt's battling performance in Leeds' 1-1 draw against Brighton, which sees the Whites climb out of the bottom three with a game to go in the Premier League.
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"It was a cracking atmosphere, the fans have definitely stuck with them," said Shearer on the BBC's Match of the Day 2. "There's only Manchester City who have scored more goals in the 90th minute than Leeds so to their credit they do keep on going.
"They do lack that little bit of quality and I do feel sorry for young Joe Gelhardt because he struggled and never gave up all afternoon. He was feeding on scraps really so for him to produce that piece of magic as it was, in that situation, when they needed it most under huge pressure, I was really pleased for them."
