Leeds maintain promotion push as Chris Wood’s brace sinks Birmingham

Chris Wood cemented his position as the Championship’s leading scorer with two goals as Leeds won 3-1 at Birmingham. Wood took his tally for the season to 22 in the Championship and 25 overall as Leeds dug out a win that was not as clear-cut as the score suggests.

The prolific goalscoring of Wood is undoubtedly a feature of Leeds’ performances as they strive to end their 13-year exile from the Premier League. But they had to grind out a result against resolute opposition and did not seal the game until a third goal from Alfonso Pedraza nine minutes from time.

Birmingham produced one of their best displays for a long time and deserved a share of the spoils with the revitalised striker Che Adams foiled on three occasions.

Wood was on the mark early in the first half. Craig Gardner produced a fine 64th-minute equaliser only for the redoubtable Wood to regain the lead for Leeds three minutes later.

To the delight of their manager, Garry Monk, who was serving a ban from the dugout and watching in the stands, Leeds made a positive start with the tenacious Liam Bridcutt making an impressive early impact.

A lot of Birmingham’s attacks came from the probing play of Emilio Nsue down the right and City should have taken the lead following a mistake by Pontus Jansson. Adams latched on to the ball and put in a low shot which Rob Green tipped away for a corner.

It proved an expensive miss as in the 14th minute Birmingham were caught napping by an innocuous lobbed effort from Wood well out on the right, after Ryan Shotton had missed a long ball. The Birmingham keeper, Tomasz Kuszczak, was hopelessly out of position as the ball went high over his head and into the net.

Birmingham, however, were far from deflated. They pressed for the equaliser as they enjoyed most of the attacking play and were unfortunate not to get back on level terms when Robert Tesche produced a rocket shot from 30 yards which blasted against the crossbar. They continued to test Leeds and only a goalline clearance by Kyle Bartley prevented Adams equalising. A couple of minutes later a superb save by Green kept out a shot another shot by Adams on the run.

Birmingham’s well-merited equaliser came in the 64th minute. Only a minute before they had sent on their leading marksman, Lukas Jutkiewicz, but it was Gardner who set the game alight. Following a right-wing cross the ball went back to Gardner who scored with a trademark low shot into the corner of the net.

Leeds, and in particular Wood, were not demoralised by the equaliser as they regained the lead three minutes later.

The substitute Kalvin Phillips slipped a low ball into the middle where the unmarked Wood simply had to tap home from close range.

Nine minutes from time Leeds sealed the game when Pedraza, also a substitute, raced through unchecked to score with a raking left-footed shot past Kuszczak.

“I thought we were second best for the first 60 minutes,” Leeds’ manager, Garry Monk, told Sky Sports. “We had a lot of defending to do but from that point on we took the front foot and got good goals at good times.”

Leeds are seven points behind second-placed Brighton & Hove Albion, who occupy the second automatic promotion place.