Brighton & HA 4 Leeds United 0: Tailspin could put abysmal Whites in relegation danger

Last night, however, a new low may well have been reached as they crashed to a loss so embarrassing that one could only feel sorry for the supporters who had traipsed to the south coast in the mistaken belief their team might be able to give Brighton & Hove Albion a game.

Instead, a quite abominable display saw United run up the white flag of surrender long before half-time.

No fight, no idea, no desire, no pride and no excuses. That just about summed up Leeds on a night when the Seagulls scored four goals with such ease in a 20-minute first-half spell that there has to be a real danger of the Yorkshire club’s season heading into such a tailspin that a relegation scrap cannot be discounted.

Nine points may separate the Yorkshire club from the bottom three this morning but, after this latest debacle, can anyone say with confidence where the next win is coming from for this team?

Bolton Wanderers, marooned in the relegation zone since August, are next up at Elland Road this Saturday, and if Neil Lennon’s men did tune in to United’s first-half horror show then surely their overriding thought will have been, ‘We can beat this shower’.

Head coach Steve Evans must hope he will be given the opportunity to right the many, many wrongs of last night.

But, on a date when traditionally women propose marriage to their menfolk – as happened over the Amex PA system before last night’s game – the talk among the 1,522 fans forced to endure such a shockingly bad performance was more centred on a possible parting of the ways.

Certainly, the lifeless ‘efforts’ of the players in yellow during that first half were just the sort to get a head coach the sack.

Talk of summer recruitment plans and tieing promising youngsters to long-term contracts is all well and good. But Leeds need to deal in the here and now, and that means scrapping their way to much-needed points while also putting some pride back in wearing the club’s badge.

Only time will tell in terms of what owner Massimo Cellino does next. It is, as anyone with even the slightest grasp of events at Elland Road over the past two years knows, a brave man who tries to second guess the Italian.

But one thing for sure is that the memory of last night’s first-half capitulation will take some erasing.

Evans had sent his side out with an unfamiliar 4-4-1-1 shape and, for the opening quarter of an hour, things went okay.

Then came the first big mistake of the night as Lewie Coyle and Scott Wootton allowed Liam Rosenior to ghost into the penalty area when the former Hull City full-back had no right to do so.

Wootton tried to make amends, but could only clatter Rosenior to the ground and Peter Bankes pointed to the spot. Tomer Hemed then nonchalantly beat Marco Silvestri from 12 yards and the rout was under way.

Three minutes later, it was Sol Bamba’s turn to turn unwitting provider with a careless pass straight to Sam Baldock.

The Seagulls striker, following an exchange of passes with Dale Stephens, drilled a shot that took a deflection off Liam Cooper to double the hosts’ advantage.

What followed was an utter shambles as, after an innocuous punt forward had caused untold panic in the visitors’ back-line, Hemed fired past Silvestri to claim Albion’s third goal inside 10 minutes. The game was already up, but what United needed was a period of consolidation. Instead, what the 25,150 crowd got was a fourth goal, Lewis Dunk rising above a static defence to head in unchallenged from a corner.

Evans’s response was to bring Wootton off at the interval and replace the defender with Mustapha Carayol. United did make an improvement, of sorts.

Alex Mowatt, for instance, twice went close, first with a free-kick that was deflected on to the roof of David Stockdale’s net and then a shot that flew high and wide.

Coyle, shifted to right-back following Wootton’s departure, also hit a rasping shot just wide as the game entered the final quarter.

A fifth goal was avoided thanks to substitute Jiri Skalak wasting a one-on-one opportunity, which ensured United emerged from the second half without suffering further damage to their goal difference.

It is doubtful, though, that this will have been of much comfort to the travelling fans when they finally got to their beds in the early hours.

Brighton & Hove Albion: Stockdale; Bruno, Dunk, Goldson, Rosenior; Knockaert, Stephens, Kayal (Sidwell 77), Murphy; Hemed (Wilson 77), Baldock (Skalak 74). Unused substitutes: Maenpaa, Greer, Calderon, Zamora.

Leeds United: Silvestri; Wootton (Carayol 46), Cooper, Bamba, Taylor; Coyle, DIagouraga (Murphy 84), Bridcutt, Mowatt; Cook; Doukara (Erwin 75). Unused substitutes: Peacock-Farrell, Berardi, Adeyemi, Antenucci.

Referee: P Bankes (Merseyside).