Anderton leads way

Tottenham Hotspur 1 Anderton 26 Leeds United 0 Attendance: 33 ,04

Even a pin would have had the common sense to point itself in the direction of a draw at White Hart Lane yesterday. Leeds had recently been involved in six goalless ones, and the last time these teams met, in December, that too was the outcome. Expectation and result were only kept apart by Darren Anderton's 25th-minute goal, but Leeds' negativity and Tottenham's breathless relief meant that both needed to take a share of the blame for a poor day's entertainment.

Gerry Francis has been relentless in his argument that once the club's injury problems are resolved Spurs will find their true position in the top six. But with time fast running out, a hat-trick for Steffen Iversen at Sunderland in their last game seemed like a bonus that had come too late. It still left them short of the 40 points perceived as the safety level.

Leeds had already achieved 40 but a lot of their fans would have exchanged some of George Graham's safety-first ploys for the sake of more entertainment. Yesterday, though, their immediate defensive posture was forced upon them as Spurs resumed where they left off 10 days previously. Indeed, Iversen himself should have continued his scoring form as early as the first minute when Nigel Martyn missed a high bounce but recovered to frustrate Iversen's prod of a shot.

The miserly reputation of the Leeds defence remained in question. Their three in the middle confused each other horribly and once Anderton had got to work confronting them from all angles they were in real trouble. After 25 minutes he cut between them so that when Teddy Sheringham headed down John Scales's centre, he had no problem in pushing in the goal.

Having Ian Rush in a lost midfield role and with Tony Yeboah and Brian Deane failing to make much progress against Tottenham's central-defensive alignment, Leeds remained on the back foot without much threat of anything more enterprising.

Some tentative movement forward by Rush promised more than it fulfilled but at least offered better support for Yeboah and particularly Deane who, nevertheless, wasted too much possession through lack of pace. It was the pace of Sinton and Anderton that divided the sides.

Eventually Leeds decided they could do without the totally ineffective Yeboah who nevertheless had the curious idea that he was hard done by, pulling off his hardly sweat-stained shirt and throwing it at the bench, refusing to acknowledge his replacement, Ian Harte, and walking sulkily straight into the tunnel. Action at last.

In spite of Tottenham's dominance the predicted roar almost came about when, 10 minutes from the end, a corner by Lee Sharpe saw Lee Bowyer head dangerously goalwards. Ian Walker probably had the ball covered but Sinton cleared anyway. Perhaps Leeds had an argument for a draw but really only because Tottenham's understandable attitude over the last 30 minutes was to preserve their valuable lead.