Arsenal 2-1 Leeds United: Tummy button fluff

This game highlighted what an awkward phase Leeds United are currently in, because last season and this so far have been a little bit better than expected, a little bit too good for what might be good for us. 

The Peacocks could have come out of this weekend joint 4th in the Premier League by holding on for a point in north London. Winning could have had them joint 2nd. Playing well, going ahead and only losing by one goal kept those options close in mind, two tantalising alternative realities. It's tempting, too tempting, to live there, instead of here.

Here, I wonder if Leeds United wouldn't benefit from going full Crazy Gang, total Wimbledon 1988, in games like these. Forget fancy notions about being a team that's good at football and just be horrible. Route one, hard tackles. Find Arsenal's training ground therapy Labrador, Win the dog, and call it a prick. 

Leedsista ⭑ by email

Independent writing for Super Leeds fans who love reading about Super Leeds

This might have been a good time to try it. Mikel Arteta was having one of his weekends when he's got an idea and he's a bit uncomfortable to be around. After pleading the fifth about working at Manchester City while they were in their cheating era, he was more voluble about his team's last game, a 3-0 defeat at Brighton. I don't think he took it very well.

Arsenal, he felt, had "a point to prove" against Leeds. "Something was touched in our identity against Brighton," he said. After conceding to the Peacocks in this game, he was worried, but "We got out of that through touching again and pinching our desire to win". "We had all these things," he said, "in the tummy." Everyone had spoken about the Brighton game, he said, "and you could sense that it was something in their tummies."

In case you're in any doubt that Arteta took that defeat to Brighton very seriously indeed, he added that he spent the international break watching videos of as many Premier League games as he could, "to understand what is happening in the league again", because he'd been questioning everything after losing to the Seagulls, after "witness[ing] a game that, my eyes were in pain". Oh, and also, he's spoken privately to Declan Rice and told him, "you are not the lighthouse anymore; you are something else." It sounds like he's told Declan what that something else is, but we all have to wait and see. "At the end of the season, I can tell you ... but he's not the lighthouse anymore." 

For an hour Leeds had Arsenal, lighthouses, Victorian piers, sandcastles, donkey rides and all, back in their Brighton bad place. I'll add another item tempting us into the alternate reality of a Leeds victory: the ensuing Arteta meltdown, Declan Rice downgraded again to a bucket of whelks. Win the dog? Arteta would have called her a prick himself.

Everything Gunner had ground to a frustrated, anguished halt. The home fans were, as always, first to wilt, grumbling at the first clops of the horseshoe of death, the ball moving drearily from side to side. It had only taken about 25 minutes. By the 50th minute, Arteta's half-time reminder about touching and pinching the best self in their tummies had his players completely flummoxed, standing over free-kicks looking at a formation of sulking statues. Leeds had got Arsenal where they wanted them and capitalised. 

It wasn't their first chance. Arsenal replicated their lack of movement defensively, and Leeds were excellent at attacking the big spaces both presented and won through pressing. Early on, Noah Okafor's shot was deflected wide. Anton Stach was about to blast Gabriel Gudmundsson's cross but Jayden Bogle presented his backside for a comedy kick up that instead. Bogle did better when Ao Tanaka's clever cross chopped over a crowd into the box, where he held off Riccardo Calafiori but was denied a goal by David Raya. Ethan Ampadu's header almost returned a Raya punch into his net. Gudmundsson had the best chance, when he controlled Bogle's cross at the back post and blasted a great save out of Raya.

All that was just the first half. At the start of the second Leeds were first to every loose ball, and every Arsenal pass was going to Leeds anyway. James Justin shot just over the bar, Tanaka stung Raya's fingertips, and Martin Ødegaard was so far from involved you could hear the cold creak of his knees' responding when he had one chance to shoot. 

And then Leeds were ahead. Noni Madueke's pass on Leeds' right was to Stach, who ran it back to Trafford amid great Gooners' groans. A dozen passes later Okafor was on the left, taking the ball from Gudmundsson and sending them both to the byline. Gabriel only just made it, but he'd seen a big space on the far side of the penalty area and James Justin just outside it. With a cross that beat Raya's dive, Gudmundsson rolled the ball between Justin and an empty net and, given plenty of time to mess it up, Justin concentrated and finished superbly.

It was United's crowning glory and they almost doubled it. While Arteta stomped around his technical area grabbing his tummy and glaring at his players — he was really invested in this tummy thing — Dominic Calvert-Lewin was continuing a fine day's centre-forwarding by chesting a long ball down for Okafor, who then just missed the end of Bogle's low cross into the six yard box. The Gunners were still stuck, every pass out of their half going to a yellow shirted player.

But Madueke, at least, was listening to Arteta. He finally cottoned on to the idea that Bogle's defending doesn't match his attacking and started going up against him, demanding the ball from his teammates. An equaliser didn't take long. Gudmundsson wasn't close enough to stop Ben White heading Madueke's deep cross into the middle and, with the ball in their six yard box for almost the first time all day, Leeds panicked. Defenders went for the ball, found each other, and Calafiori battered the ball off the ground and through James Trafford's hands from six yards. 

It was just what Arteta had been waiting for. Now at last Arsenal remembered what was in their tummies and, helped by £230mn worth of substitutes, set about winning the game. Bruno Guimarães was the new key element in their midfield, making sure passes went to red shirts again, getting to loose balls before Leeds did. And conning his way Luke Ayling-style to the winning goal, which began with him out wide, megging Tanaka then diving under Ampadu's breath. It was one of those where the player grabs the ball and takes the free-kick before the referee, Paul Tierney today, has time to think and barely to blow, and it pushed Leeds backwards. Madueke, Ødegaard and Saka advanced between Bogle and Justin, Tanaka got sucked into helping others with stopping Ødegaard, and that left Guimarães free for Declan Rice's backheel on the edge of the area. He took his time and smashed his shot low into Trafford's corner.

That was basically that, only leaving Daniel Farke to shuffle through substitutes and formations that all foundered now Arsenal had the lead, supremacy in midfield, and the touch of winning in their tummies. Arteta might have an unsettling aura, but he wasn't wrong. "The last time we put our shirt on, something was missing," he said. It took an hour against Leeds, but eventually they put their shirts on, touched their tummies, and found the missing — tummy button fluff? Who knows what the secret ingredient is. £230mn of tummy button fluff can't hurt.

The irritating truth of fixtures like these is that the team that won the Premier League last season always has them under control even when they look like they don't. Whatever hole you put them in has ladders to get them out, and it's down to Arsenal whether they climb them or not. Leeds are not, at this point, a strong enough club to be winning games like this on the regular, and Farke made that point afterwards. "Once you're in the lead and push for the second, sometimes as a team not used to winning titles you can be a bit over-excited in possession," he said. 

I suppose my conceptual question after all this is about what's worth doing when those are the odds. What's the value of playing well and getting nothing, rather than setting up like a bad team that Match of the Day won't patronise, and scrapping to a point? Farke didn't want to park any buses against Arsenal, and that wasn't how Brighton had beaten them. But who is to say a low-block and some low blows from an old, low school wouldn't have made it even harder for Arsenal, in their fragile tummy-flutters state, to recover their winning selves?

Farke won't do it and Leeds can't do it, because we signed Harry Wilson for a reason (that hopefully will become clear soon). Because Leeds are good enough, now, to outplay Arsenal for an hour, they have to. Even if it will only provoke Arsenal into making a point of being champions in the last half-an-hour, while post-international break travel legs and bench inequality does for Leeds' best efforts, the Peacocks can't opt to roughhouse anymore. They've crossed the line into being a bit too good, not yet good enough.

Leedsista ⭑ by email

Independent writing for Super Leeds fans who love reading about Super Leeds

Leeds United might be more fun if they weren't so good, but being so good has put us on what Arteta would undoubtedly call a journey to respecting the best selves within as manifested by high-performance navel-gazing and playing fetch with Win the dog. Until United's goodness becomes sustainable, to the end of games and from the bench, it will be a glass jaw on days like these, when Leeds go out there, play brilliant against a stronger team and lose. It's tough, knowing there's an alternate and better world in our tummies. ⭑彡

Money off mugs!

Free members of Leedsista can get £1 off a Leedsista mug (as many times as they like. Paying members can get £2 off. If that's you, check your emails for the codes — if you wish that was you, you can join Leedsista by clicking here.

Click here to buy