RISING star Crysencio Summerville fired Leeds United to another Championship win to keep Leeds United firmly in the automatic promotion picture.

His double over struggling Rotherham United took the Dutch under-21 winger’s tally to 15 goals to the season as the Whites brushed aside their Yorkshire neighbours 3-0 at Elland Road.

It was Leeds’ sixth league win on the bounce and they will look to extend that sequence when they travel to Swansea City on Tuesday night.

Leeds had missed lots of opportunities to build on Patrick Bamford’s controversial tenth-minute opener before Summerville, a £1m bargain buy from Feyenoord, took the game by the scruff of the neck.

Seven minutes in to the second half the home side’s relentless pressure finally paid off. Playmaker Georginio Rutter, another top performer in all-white, was rewarded for staying on his feet while under pressure to push the ball through to Summerville who sped towards goal and chipped the ball over goalkeeper Viktor Johansson.

Eight minutes later Summerville’s dancing feet drew a foul in the box and he promptly dinked the spot-kick “Panenka style” over Johansson to guarantee Leeds’ 100 per cent winning start to 2024 in the Championship.

That was the cue for January’s manager of the month Daniel Farke to make a raft of substitutions as he looked to preserve players’ energy ahead of the trip to South Wales. Among those to come on was York-raised Charlie Cresswell who got his first taste of competitive action since the 1-0 defeat at Birmingham in August.

Still the chances came for Farke’s side and still they failed to take them to reflect the gulf in class between the two teams. The Millers, 12 points from safety, were ground through the mill.

The visitors needed every piece of luck going as they went into the game so were gutted to fall behind early on when Bamford appeared to turn Junior Firpo’s cross into the net off his arm. Despite Rotherham’s protests referee Andy Madley awarded the goal and the only surprise was that it took another 40-plus minutes for Leeds to add another.

Farke said: “It could have been a tennis score with the chances we created, but you have to respect Rotherham for fighting until the end. They never gave up and they had a few set-pieces in the final 10 minutes so we are happy with the 3-0.

“If Patrick’s goal was a handball then it probably should not have stood, but these things do even themselves out over the course of a season. It can sometimes be more important if it was a match-winning goal, but today we created so many chances and we scored more goals. I don't think it would have made a difference to the result if it was disallowed.

The win kept Leeds in third place opening a three point gap on Ipswich immediately below them after the Suffolk side drew at home by West Brom although the Tractor Boys have a game in hand.