Asked last week if he thought the Yorkshire club would win League One or, failing that, make good the promotion which eluded them at Wembley, Warne admitted he was one of the few people who treated their prospects with scepticism.

His reasoning was not that the division as a whole had improved, but rather that Leeds would find the consistency and energy they displayed last season difficult to replicate.

The final league table will be the judge of Warne's prediction, but United's second foray into League One is yet to contradict the claim of Yeovil Town's veteran.

Leeds were held to a 1-1 draw by Yeovil on Saturday, aptly rounding off a start to the term which could be most accurately described as a mixed bag.

United's confidence was brimming before their fixture at Scunthorpe United on August 9, as Gary McAllister intended it to be, but a win, a defeat and an infuriating stalemate later, his squad's facade seems somewhat fragile.

For McAllister, the club's results have offered few clues about the season which lies ahead.

At no stage of United's three league matches has he seen anything to suggest that League One is a stronger competition than it was 12 months ago, but the same at present could be said of Leeds.

An impressive half-hour against Scunthorpe aside, their momentum has consisted of irregular splutters.

Saturday's performance at Huish Park was no different, though the result could not be blamed on United's failings alone.

The two points surrendered against Yeovil were lost to a debatable penalty decision, an inept referee but also a second-half display which lacked the cut and thrust needed to put their hosts to the sword.

It was telling that the Leeds players who berated Dean Whitestone, the match official, afterwards were also moved to express disappointment at their own collective display.

It was a fixture that United should have won, and especially after Yeovil's goalkeeper, Asmir Begovic, watched the ball roll into his net with 25 seconds gone.

Yeovil exuded an uncertain air, as they had on United's previous visit to Huish Park in April, and Russell Slade's side made little impression until the award of their penalty on 61 minutes.

Before Whitestone's most contentious decision, the hosts had created only one opening, albeit a chance from which Warne ought to have scored, but they ran Leeds hard during the final third of the match and looked more likely to produce a second, winning goal.

By full-time, Yeovil were justified in thinking their point was earned.
Yeovil, in any case, are required to make what they can of their resources, and Slade's inclusion of Gavin Tomlin and Keiran Murtagh – two players signed from Blue Square South club Fisher Athletic this summer – put Saturday's match in context and left Yeovil deserving of praise for their final half-hour.

When compared to the Somerset club, it is only right that Leeds are required to carry a weight of expectancy this season.

As for Whitestone, the less said about the Northamptonshire official the better.

United will take their share of the blame for failing to add to their early goal and render the debatable penalty irrelevant.

But their impetus after half-time was not aided by Whitestone's display.
It hindered the referee's own afternoon that he failed to impose his authority on a game which had a combative feel from the start.

Though a total of eight bookings represented a high card-count, it was reflective of the underlying niggle that existed between the two sets of players.

Danny Schofield set the tone with a two-footed tackle on Frazer Richardson after 15 minutes which threatened to provoke a brawl and resulted in an injury severe enough to enforce Schofield's substitution, but others were also culpable.

McAllister, meanwhile, was left to digest a unusual collection of bookings which included a yellow card shown to Robert Snodgrass for diving, one to Jermaine Beckford for dissent and one to Luciano Becchio for a clattering foul on Terry Skiverton.

None, however, will have irked him more than the caution shown to Paul Huntington in response to the centre-back's role in the 61st-minute penalty.

Huntington was attempting to defend a high ball on his own penalty spot when Warne went to ground in front of him, apparently brought down by a foul from the youngster.

Few of Yeovil's players appealed for a penalty, but Whitestone seemed convinced by Huntington's infringement.

Lloyd Owusu – Schofield's replacement – took the penalty and saw Casper Ankergren parry the ball low to his left, but the rebound sprung out of the keeper's grasp and left Owusu free to strike at the second attempt.

Ankergren's clean sheet might have been wiped out eight minutes earlier when Becchio chested Darren Way's corner into his own six-yard box and gave Warne the chance to volley a shot which took a fortunate deflection and sailed wide of United's goal.

But Owusu's strike helped give life to a match which Leeds had controlled from the opening minute.

Becchio's inclusion at the expense of Enoch Showunmi was the only change to the United team beaten 2-0 by Oldham Athletic seven days previously – McAllister's answer to the lack of creativity seen during that game at Elland Road – and his selection was both inspired and instantaneously effective.

The clock had not cleared 30 seconds when Rui Marques drove a long pass out of his own half and to the edge of Yeovil's box, where Becchio's strong run took him away from Skiverton and towards the ball.

The striker had little space in which to shoot but as Skiverton and Begovic waited for Becchio to release possession, he turned and swept an inch-perfect shot across Yeovil's keeper and into far corner of a net which had seemed impossible to find.

Official estimates set the time of the goal at 25 seconds.

Becchio's finish was the most rapid produced by a Leeds player since Jermaine Wright scored inside 11 seconds against Burnley in 2004, and it should have been the talking point of a fixture which McAllister, at that early point, would have expected his players to close out. Owusu's effort saw that Becchio and his goal were overshadowed.

Leeds continued to show promise in the first half, and Alan Sheehan dipped a free-kick over the crossbar before a shot from Jermaine Beckford curled away from Begovic's left-hand post with the keeper struggling to cover his net.

Like Oldham before them, Yeovil initially offered little in the way of a response to United's dominance, but the penalty gave them the confidence to attack Leeds at will.

Tomlin came within inches of lobbing Ankergren, who took the pace off the ball with a desperate swipe of his fingertips before claiming it two yards from goal, and Sheehan twice averted a defeat in the final 10 minutes, once by heading Warne's shot off the line and again by dispossessing Tomlin with a brave tackle inside his own box.

United's only obvious opportunity during the last half-hour fell to Beckford.

His shot from a tight angle swept past Begovic and narrowly failed to squeeze inside the post, but McAllister's players were hindered further by a sequence of peculiar decisions from Whitestone and the regular sound of his whistle.

Whitestone deserved the criticism which came his way later.

But he is not a subject that is likely to be discussed on United's training ground this week by a manager who was candid enough to admit that any problems he has lie closer to home.