Champions League 2001: Leeds United vs Anderlecht
Rio Ferdinand just wanted to hear the Champions League anthem, and Leeds fans just wanted some flair to excite them. Then Ian Harte stepped up.
Rio Ferdinand just wanted to hear the Champions League anthem, and Leeds fans just wanted some flair to excite them. Then Ian Harte stepped up.
The half-time stats showed three yellow cards for Chelsea, two red cards and three other players booked for Leeds. There had been one shot at goal. Norman Hunter was spotted in his role commentating for Radio Leeds, 'Grinning all over his face. How he must have loved it.'
-ista | a specialist, enthusiast or advocate of a belief or principle
Maturity brings temperament in big moments, and Leeds discovered at the turn of the century how hard it is to achieve good things without it. Leeds are discovering, as this season turns towards its final months, just how much of a good thing they've got.
Aaronson was helpfully metaphorising the whole team's response to losing to Arsenal, so thanks to him for summing up the night. He didn't have to get kicked so much, and Leeds didn't have to win this game, but it's good that everybody involved got on with those things anyway.
It might just be the sicko in me, the thrilled kid when Carl Shutt, not Eric Cantona, was the hero in Camp Nou in 1992/93. But if Leeds United's season comes down to Joel Piroe's finishing to keep us from finishing in the bottom three, I'll feel that prospect like a bolt of energy.
In New Zealand, Danny Hay was seen as 'the complete modern player'. He didn't become that at Leeds United, but he learned well from seeing what it looked like.
The biggest intrigue of the day was Daniel Farke, managing to simultaneously stir the pots marked 'transfer window' and 'department of unreliable goalkeepers'. And just why did every Norwegian goalkeeper sign for Spurs in the 1990s, anyway?
Although the later arrivals of Duberry, Mills et al made Danny Granville seem like exactly the sort of player David O'Leary was shopping for, George Graham had brought him in. And before long every player Graham had signed was sold.
A manager is entitled, after much thought, to leave the players who kept a clean sheet last week out there on the pitch and expect them to keep doing their jobs, i.e., not conceding to Thierno Barry.
Everything seemed set for success, his way, with an ambitious club with a family ethos that would pay him handsomely. Nobody can say for sure why Don Revie, in the end, didn't go to Everton.
Kevin Blackwell was not the right manager for nurturing the kind of young talent Leeds had, back in the early days of the David O'Leary era, made a habit of bringing in, of whom Dan Harding was the last hurrah.