Impressive Leeds romp to victory

Matteo celebrates after goal in Leeds win

Leeds United 6-0 Besiktas

Leeds United enjoyed another night of Champions League success with an impressive victory against Turkish side Besiktas which put the Elland Road side in a strong position to qualify for the second group stage.

Lee Bowyer, the scorer in Leeds' 1-0 win against Italians AC Milan in their last Champions League outing, opened and completed the home side's goal account in between Mark Viduka, Dominic Matteo, Eirik Bakke and Darren Huckerby adding to the Leeds' tally.

It was important we got at them straight away and we started brightly. We passed the ball around well and everybody played their part. The football was wonderful.

  Leeds manager David O'Leary

Leeds showed a high degree of confidence and attacking intentions from the start of the game with unmarked striker Alan Smith heading wide at the near post from a second minute corner.

Besiktas responded five minutes later when Miroslav Karhan played a neat one-two with Umit before releasing a shot which was narrowly wide.

Justified

Leeds heeded the warning and took the lead in their next attack. Ian Harte found space down the left-hand side and curled in a low cross which the on-rushing Bowyer converted from six yards.

Australian Viduka, back from Olympic duty to replace Micahel Bridges in attack, then justified his selction by scoring with a header after 12 minutes.

Just a minute after he was put clear and saw a shot rebound of Besiktas goalkeeper Ike Shorunmu onto the crossbar, Viduka made no mistake when heading in Gary Kelly's centre from the right.

Ahmet Dursun shot straight at Leeds goalkeeper Nigel Martyn after a 19th minute counter-attack by the visitors and Leeds compounded the misery of their visitors by adding a third after 22 minutes.

Price

Against a Besiktas defence susceptible to crosses, a corner was played short to Olivier Dacourt and his low ball saw Shorunmu committ himself early and Dominic Matteo gathered the loose ball at the near post before slotting home.

Matteo struck the crossbar after 36 minutes but Besiktas' Karhan headed wide as the half came to a close.

Karhan was put through early in the second-half but came out quickly to save and as Leeds seem to tire Umit was put through but shot into the side-netting.

Besiktas paid the price for missing those chances after 65 minutes, however, when the strong Viduka played the ball acorss the Besiktas area to Bakke and the midfielder shot beyond the reach of goalkeeper Shorunmu.

Rout

With 20 minutes to go Besiktas' Pascal Nouma seemed to raise his arm in pushing Danny Mills in a slight fracas. The referee did not punish the striker but Nouma was almost immediately substituted much to his disapproval as he threw his shirt off as he came off the pitch.

Substitute Huckerby completed the rout when he gathered the ball at the far post from a Leeds corner before turning and shooting for Leeds' fifth.

Bowyer stole in at the far post as the match drew to a close to cap an impressive display by manager David O'Leary's side.

The only minus point for Leeds was that striker Alan Smith, whose movemnet and determination caused continuous problems for the Besiktas defence, recieved a yellow acrd and will miss the retun leg of this match.

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Leeds: Martyn, Kelly, Harte, Radebe, Mills, Bowyer, Bakke, Dacourt, Matteo, Viduka, Smith. Subs: Robinson, Bridges, Huckerby, McPhail, Jones, Hay, Burns.

Besiktas: Shorunmu, Khlestov, Umit, Erman, Nihat, Tayfur, Kahran, Ibrahim, Munch, Dursun, Nouma. Subs: Fevzi, Murat, Rahim, Fazli, Mehmet, Bayram, Yasin.

Referee: Manuel Perrera (Madrid)