Shortly before kick-off a tepid early afternoon sun finally pierced through the banks of grey cloud which had enveloped West Yorkshire since dawn.
It never became quite warm enough for Roy Hodgson to remove his padded, winter-issue, club anorak but well before the end Crystal Palace’s interim manager bore the contented look of a man refreshed by a week on a tropical beach.
As the visiting fans chorused “We want six” and the excellent Eberechi Eze repeatedly danced around an increasingly shell-shocked Leeds defence, Hodgson looked as if he could not quite believe his luck.
After all, until Marc Guéhi equalised on the verge of half-time Leeds had missed successive chances with Palace’s reserve goalkeeper, Sam Johnstone, almost single-handedly keeping his side in the game.
Everything was transformed after the break with a potentially damaging Leeds surrender leaving Javi Gracia’s side 16th, only two points above Nottingham Forest in the bottom three. In contrast Hodgson’s suddenly upwardly mobile Palace rose to 12th, six points clear of the relegation zone.
It is now two wins secured and seven goals scored in two games since the 75-year-old emerged from retirement to replace Patrick Vieira at his old club and suddenly anything seems possible. Much more of this and Hodgson will surely find himself the poster boy for the government’s current campaign to get over-50s back to work.
Gracia’s hitherto fairly realistic hopes of turning his own interim deal into a more permanent contract at Leeds this summer ultimately took quite a knock but his chameleon team began in a deceptively aggressive front-foot style.
The game had barely begun before a quartet of home chances came and went, with Johnstone, making his Premier League debut for Palace while deputising for the injured Vicente Guaita, saving smartly from Brenden Aaronson and Luis Sinisterra. Given that Patrick Bamford chipped a shot off target and Sinisterra headed another opening wide, Leeds were not so much on top as utterly omnipotent.
Bamford turned such dominance into material advantage in the 21st minute, after expertly losing his marker Tyrick Mitchell, connecting with Aaronson’s out-swinging corner and defying Johnstone with a glancing header which grazed the inside of a post en route beyond the goalkeeper.
The subsequent flurry of embraces between Bamford and Gracia’s coaching staff reflected not merely the centre-forward’s popularity but apparent delight at a much rehearsed training-ground routine evidently paying dividends.
The only trouble was that Gracia’s rearguard were not so clever when it came to defending visiting dead balls. Sure enough they misread Michael Olise’s excellent in-swinging corner and the unmarked Jeffrey Schlupp concluded Palace’s first real attack by heading against a post.
Indeed the way in which Hodgson’s side continued to menace at set-pieces was perhaps an early warning sign of trouble ahead for a Leeds side who, without further heroics from Johnstone in repelling Jack Harrison’s free-kick and Pascal Struijk’s header, would surely have been home and dry.
With Johnstone buying his teammates time to level things up, Guéhi’s equaliser, volleyed past Illan Meslier after Schlupp nudged on Eze’s free-kick, proved an unexpected watershed.
Guéhi had spent most of the opening half struggling to second guess Bamford’s movement but, after seeing his goal survive a VAR review for a potential offside, he started defending as if he were 10 feet tall.
Perhaps deciding that imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery, he and Palace re-emerged for the second period in ultra aggressive mode.Hodgson’s team swiftly assumed the lead when Olise dodged Struijk before crossing superbly and allowing Jordan Ayew, who had outmanoeuvred Luke Ayling, to score with a header Meslier touched but could not hold. Ayew, deputising for the injured Wilfried Zaha, enjoyed a very good game, crucially refusing to surrender during what must have been a morale-sapping opening 45 minutes.
The now irrepressible Eze soon registered Palace’s third, smoothly exchanging passes with Olise before sliding the ball beyond an on-rushing Meslier. It was suddenly extremely hard to comprehend how goalscoring had become such a problem for Palace in recent months.
Gracia responded with a triple substitution, introducing Rodrigo, Wilfried Gnonto and Rasmus Kristensen as he switched to 4-4-2.
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No system change, though, could compensate for the collective loss of concentration now afflicting an alarmingly heavy legged Leeds. Admittedly Hodgson’s side were passing and moving with elegance and artistry but the home side seemed to have abandoned the idea of pressing and, damningly, no one tracked Eze in the preamble to his goal. Ayling, Gracia’s right-back, and Marc Roca, a supposedly key central midfielder, proved particularly weak links.
When a counter-attacking Olise ran at the Leeds defence with the ease of a long-haul aircraft cutting through cloud, Gracia’s team folded completely. After Odsonne Édouard met the thoroughly impressive Olise’s ensuing pass, took a steadying touch and beat Meslier with a left-footed shot the ground began emptying.
It was left to those gluttons for punishment still inside Elland Road to boo Leeds off after Kristensen played Ayew onside and watched, helpless, as he scored Palace’s fifth.
