Leeds United v Crystal Palace Carling Cup

Leeds United definitely made its objectives loud and clear with its lineup in their Carling Cup match against Crystal Palace as they had many new faces in it and frankly, one that the squad needs to have on the pitch on Saturdays. The lineup blended experience where needed, namely Paul Telfer and pace, with Fabian Delph in the midfield and attacked, attacked, attacked.

Cutting straight to the chase, against a squad you'd naturally accept as superior, Leeds blew apart Crystal Palace 4-0 in every facet of the game. Through the early start of the League One campaign has shown a very dowdy approach to Football, akin to having an old-model who plays in lower-league and rarely runs, try to launch your attack. With a few subtle changes in the midfield, most notably to include Jonny Howson and Robert Snodgrass in the starting grid, this is a lineup that'll devastate League One. Jermaine Beckford and Luciano Becchio must be paired together at striker, assuming Leeds doesn't move to a preferred 4-3-3 or a 4-4-2 "diamond" with Luciano as the enganche. Luciano's pedigree is very obvious and his raw abilities are far beyond his teammates. That might be a bitter pill for some to swallow particularly as his fellow striker Jermaine Beckford was League One's Player-of-the-Year, last season but the reality of the situation is the Boca Junior trained Argentine's movement without the ball and distribution is a quantum distance beyond all others on the pitch and he'll improve the club immeasurably. Without question he is best signing in League One or the Championship League I've seen in a number of years.

Crystal Palace manager Neil Warnock said post-match:
"Quite honestly we couldn't cope with the front lads. Once the second goal went in it was disappointing to say the least.

"If you defend like that you're going to get beat against any level of opposition and I thought the two centre forwards bullied our defenders from start to finish.

Leeds has to put this victory behind them and get ready for a tough League One match-up against Bristol Rovers on Saturday.