Arsenal 5-0 Leeds United: Learning how to lose
At least Sean Longstaff has experience of handling this sort of defeat: he's lost 4-0 and 4-1 at the Emirates for Newcastle. You can either view that as the record of a loser or assume it has instilled resilience, and that might go to the heart of the argument.
There's very little way for a promoted team to leave its second game of the season, if it's at 2025's Arsenal, other than disappointed. The questions are about what kind of disappointment the team takes away, and how much of it.
Leeds took the field in north London wearing an all-blue throwback to the iconic win over Arsenal, Marko Viduka and all, that kept Leeds up in 2003. Their retro look inspired awkward reminiscences, about how that patched up 'n' Peter Reid team — Radebe and Matteo in midfield, Simon Johnson off the bench and all — could beat a version of Arsene Wenger's pre-invincibles that was going for the Premiership title. That match was a crack in trajectories, Arsenal going on to a new stadium and a cumulative £2 billion of spending on players, Leeds going to League One and one festive day when a million pounds bought Luke Murphy from Crewe. You might remember Pat Bamford arriving, for £7m in 2018, as the most expensive Leeds player since Robbie Fowler. Arsenal spent £27m on Lucas Torreira that summer. There was another blue-dressed visit in the meantime, when Simon Grayson's team were a stoppage time Ben Parker penalty away from victory in the FA Cup and, likewise, fans were harking after that sort of spirited performance this weekend in the Premier League. Where was that fight? It's not hard to remember Leeds going to Arsenal and going well. You just need a long memory, and Jonny Howson.
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Read about Ben Parker and curse that penalty here
You also need to address that one game is not always like another game. 2003 was an all-or-nothing attempt at keeping an ailing club in the top flight, undertaken by players who if they'd turned it on more often should have been good enough for the top end. In 2011 Leeds were rolling off the momentum of promotion from League One, riding it to 5th in the Championship, and playing a second string Arsenal side that didn't really care about the cup. The latest visit was for Arsenal's first home league match of the season, in which they wanted to flex as title contenders after last season's — and last weekend's — disappointments and show off £190 million of new players, plus more in the stands, to their supporters.
For Leeds, it was a one-off hiding to nothing, an early campaign free hit, but in the league it never works like that. They couldn't treat this is a one-off do-or-die cup game for boring reasons like player development, team cohesion, 'not selling our DNA' as Daniel Farke put it. This couldn't be a one-off cup game tactical selection, it had to be a game to practice playing their way against one of the best teams around. In terms of tough love and taking medicine, Leeds' players probably learned more losing 5-0 to Arsenal than they did from beating Everton.
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It's true Leeds needed to show more fight in this match but before you can fight something you must first be able to comprehend it, understand the size and heft of it. Leeds, in their first serious game against a Champions League opponent, laid some gloves on the Gunners but without first finding their weak spots, and fended them off for a while without really knowing their strengths. It was like fighting blindfolded. The first half hour was okay as Leeds, unable for the first time since 2023 to dominate possession and control a game, withstood Arsenal's cautious side to side approach. Another hour of that probably would have been fine. But Arsenal clinched the game by using their confounding plan B which is, with all that money and all that skill and all Mikel Arteta's motivational speeches, scoring from set-piece routines that any team of thickos could run through. Especially when they're up against their thicko set-piece inverts, Leeds United.
Leeds made much in summer of identifying set-pieces in both boxes as vital to staying in the Premier League, their data analysis team of five combing through years of data to conclude that corners and big strong lads are the recipe for success. Well, defending set-pieces is going to take more than signing lots of tall players and then not playing them anyway, as was clear when Arsenal's players ran at United's from behind and occupied gaps between them, Jurriën Timber heading Declan Rice's corner straight in. He scored from their other corner of two, in the second half, another back post to front post routine with added scramble, and while my hope is that defending set-pieces will be easier against sides who haven't redefined themselves as experts working from a catalogue of unpredictable variations, my fear is that what Arsenal were doing wasn't exactly complicated. We'll have to wait and see what Jaka Bijol brings to this, and who drops out for him: he's been presumed Pascal Struijk's replacement, but he was the only player with a chance for Leeds, a thumping header from our corner that David Raya had to tip over at 0-0. Struijk has scored eleven non-penalty career goals, Joe Rodon has three. If that's what this season is coming down to, you wouldn't be dropping Struijk.
Timber's second goal made it 4-0. The second and third, given away cheaply either side of half-time, were reflective of how a class gulf can punish a team. The second might not have happened without the disruption of conceding the first: with their plan for staying in the game spoiled, Leeds were hazy and got turned over in their own half. Bukayo Saka just walloped the ball past Lucas Perri's head from a tight angle and made him look silly. The third shouldn't have been the response to a half-time reset but Viktor Gyökeres broke United's high offside trap, foxed Struijk and Jayden Bogle's attempts to avoid conceding a penalty, and made sure he got to show off his stupid Dark Knight Rises goal celebration by shooting inside the near post.
The biggest beneficiary of Perri's performance was probably Illan Meslier, watching a reel of evidence contrasting with the good he was actually doing all that time. He probably would have conceded five as well, but very rarely has he footed Leeds into trouble the way his replacement did while trying to pass the ball here. And, oh yes, five. The fifth doesn't deserve much discussion, except Arsenal were cocky enough by the end to bring on a literal child for his debut and show the world that they've taught him nice and early about throwing himself down to the ground if his toe gets tickled in the box.
Between goals Leeds were chasing shadows and, hopefully, learning lessons. Our brand new best player and hero, Anton Stach, kept running into brick walls wearing red and white shirts as if he was losing that first minute tackle against Everton again and again. Ilia Gruev couldn't help him or himself. Ao Tanaka drifted around the game in a sort of shock until he was replaced by Sean Longstaff, who at least has more experience of handling this sort of defeat: he's lost 4-0 and 4-1 at the Emirates for Newcastle. You can either view that as the record of a loser or assume it has instilled resilience, and this might go to the heart of the argument about letting Largie Ramazani leave, if he leaves. His exuberant flair is a thrill, but when in this game would he have been able to show it? Perhaps, for what Leeds have to do this season, Jack Harrison is a safer bet. Ramazani is 24 but has only started more than sixteen times in a season once. Harrison had been first choice for two seasons in New York, won the Championship with Leeds and finished 9th in the Premier League by that age. He's lost seven times to Arsenal in his career and can teach Tanaka how to cope.
What players like Tanaka took from this match will be the eventual test of its worth to Leeds. How it changes Leeds this season will be interesting too. Daniel Farke didn't have the finished product on display at Arsenal — no Bijol, no Dominic Calvert-Lewin, only a brief sight of Noah Okafor, other presumed incomings conspicuous by their absence. The manager has a penchant for throwing up an early season letdown before rearranging his team into something more durable: Joel Piroe against Arsenal could be this season's Joffy, Poveda and Shackleton at Birmingham 2023, or the stifle until it hurts 0-0 at West Brom in 2024.
While the pressure of the Premier League means it is sacrilege to throw points away, Leeds do have the security of their start. Remember? Last Monday? When everything was great? United have, after two rounds of fixtures, three league points and a league win. Last season it took Leicester five games to accumulate three points, and they didn't win a match until game seven; Ipswich, five games to three points then their first win in match eleven; Southampton broke three points with their first win in game ten. The season before Luton and Burnley got both in match seven, Sheffield United in game eleven.
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The value of Leeds' winning start this season can't be overstated, even if some of that can be explained by saying 'Everton, though' out loud. But the point is to take those points and wins off Everton when you can, as soon as you can, as often as you can, to make it easier to worry less about the days when you can't because 'Arsenal, though'. Which is not only about the gap created by spending hundreds of millions of pounds on players over two decades — Everton have done that — but by hundreds of millions usually spent well. Arsenal have done that, and it still hasn't won them a league title in 21 years, so what hope anyone else? That's what the modern Premier League confronts promoted teams with now, a gap exponentially more chasmic than just five years ago when Marcelo Bielsa's singular team put up a memorable fight in defeat to Liverpool, a few weeks before succumbing to consecutive 4-1s against Leicester and Crystal Palace.
The real questions for Leeds United are not actually about the kind of disappointment they take from this match, or how much of it they take, but how much impact disappointment is allowed to have on their real games in the real season and how quickly it is made to evaporate. Newcastle will be another test but on something closer to our terms. Fulham, Wolves and Bournemouth ought to be Everton'd. Perhaps by the time of Arsenal's return, to Elland Road in January, our team will be educated enough to help their way to 22 years without a title and ourselves to survival in the league that really counts. ⭑彡
More to Read at Leedsista since last time:
Tony Currie, first time: Arsenal vs Leeds United, August 1978 ⭑ Tony Currie was a symbol of the post-Revie transformation of Leeds United from a clinical winning machine to something more relaxed, and much less effective. Nicer hair, taller floodlights, no more trophies. But what Don Revie had drilled into his players, they now drilled into Tony Currie.
How Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Leeds United just might work ⭑ An experienced Premier League striker who has scored two consecutive seasons in double figures and played and scored for England, who just needs to stay fit and recover the form he showed under Carlo Ancelotti for the next few years to become the prime of his career — and he's free?
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