Burnley 2-0 Leeds United: Crosspatch
Not taking three points from this relegation rival means those three points will have to be taken from better teams later. So Leeds need to become an even better team, soon, if they can.
Some fixtures feel doomed to repeat and Leeds playing Burnley might be one of them for as long as Daniel Farke and Scott Parker are in the dugouts. At Turf Moor this fixture has been fun, now and then, even if United went one or even two goals behind. But where was Robert Snodgrass this weekend, for two late turnaround goals? Where was Jonny Howson for an 85th minute 3-2 winner?
Jonny isn't too hard to find, he's over there. But getting back to that history through the sludge of recent Farke-Parker meetings is not so easy. In January, at Turf Moor, the league's leading teams played out a hideous 0-0 draw and both sides were condemned as too dour to go up. They went up, though. Last September at Elland Road Burnley were winners of a game that suggested relying on Mateo Joseph was a mistake and Manor Solomon's loan would leak goals against us. Ao Tanaka was thrown on in a futile search for creativity, Hannibal got a yellow card through needless aggression, and Ethan Ampadu who is never taken off was taken off. Leeds lost, and with eight points on the board the season was teetering towards disaster.
This weekend United's forwards looked like mistakes and Tanaka came on late and Hannibal was booked for etc and Ampadu who is never, was; and with eight league points on the board Leeds lost. And if that's the fates aligning, is it to tell us not to worry about this game too much because it will be shrugged off by our future the same as last year? In the long run of last season Leeds proved themselves the betters of Burnley and that hope exists here, because if Burnley can play as badly as they did against Leeds and win 2-0 it shouldn't be hard for our team to do that too. So fingers crossed. Because Leeds won't get very far if they stay in the rut of this match.
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Some of the Peacocks' problems can be filed as needs musts. With Noah Okafor, Wilf Gnonto and Dan James all at various stages of hurt, Jack Harrison and Brenden Aaronson turned open wings into clogged arteries. While much is being made of United's almost absurd total of 47 crosses in this match, more can be said about the eight good centres Dan James delivered in the last 25 minutes as a contrast to the seven Harrison tried with, plus three from Aaronson, that weren't worth a thing in the other 65.
The situation has an easy answer: cure James' legs, and get him playing and crossing. Harder to fathom is how Harrison can spend so much of the international break at Thorp Arch with Dominic Calvert-Lewin — and the previous two years on Merseyside — without working out how to hit his head with a size five Puma Orbita. Is the atmosphere so different in East Lancs that a flighted ball becomes an unpredictable enemy? Or is this how it goes down in training, cross after cross hitting a near defender or a distant hill while Calvert-Lewin stands on the penalty spot wondering what cruelty is smiting him with another season of this?
On the other wing Aaronson played like Aaronson and unfortunately that meant proving himself unequal to the big moments demanded of a hyped up USMNT dream-son. In an alternative world Aaronson, Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Jesse Marsch would be helping Premier League Leeds United to thrive ahead of decisive involvement in winning a home World Cup this summer. Instead, if the USA make it to the final and Aaronson makes it with them, they'd better pray their be-a-hero moments don't fall to Brenden.
This repetition from last season is a repetition of squandered valour, from last season's opening day opportunity to turn equalising salvage against Portsmouth into victorious glory, missed, to this weekend's derring-didn't, set up by Jaidon Anthony (thanks for trying old pal) and Harrison, a chance to bury Burnley's lead. This was awful to watch. Harrison did everything well after Anthony gave him the ball by accident, and the pass into space on the right felt fantastic — on your bike and hit it, Jayden Bogle! Instead, Aaronson appeared, and it might have been easier on everyone if he'd Alioski'd the ball somewhere back towards Yorkshire. Instead he sidefooted it under the keeper, who deflected it onto the post, and the ball and the chance and his one big moment pinged away. Brenden, yet again close, but not close.
Even if it relied on a rare mistake from the Clarets, at least that chance came about a different way. It still didn't jolt Leeds away from their ninety minute tactic of crossing, crossing, crossing again, crossing worse, then crossing a bit better (Dan James) when all shape had gone because multiplying Calvert-Lewin by Lukas Nmecha and Joel Piroe somehow made the tripled strikeforce harder to find. These were the manager's instructions, but the cause of their rigid application is found by scanning midfield until we find Ao Tanaka, on the bench.
Farke might love a cross but he doesn't hate imagination in use by the players who have it and Tanaka is, I think, supposed to be playing this season. The opening night midfield was Tanaka with Ampadu and Anton Stach, then injury to Ampadu sent Leeds to Arsenal with Tanaka, Stach and Ilia Gruev. Tanaka's subsequent knee injury hasn't helped, but the midfield since has looked like a product of learning the wrong lessons from that 5-0 disaster.
The story of midfield so far is that Sean Longstaff looks like a great signing whose maturity can be influential and make a difference this season. And Anton Stach takes a great free-kick. I said this after the Spurs game, that 'by the end of next season Stach could be one of the best midfielders in the league', but at Turf Moor he didn't even look like one of the best midfielders in our team. The principle of three players being defensively solid is fine, but the way the structure is pushing Stach ahead of Longstaff and Ampadu seems to be squeezing the life out of him, judging by the listless way he jogged in Loum Tchaouna's wake before he unleashed an unopposed top corner howitzer for 2-0. There's always more to a goal than one thing, but sometimes one thing is unavoidable when you replay it and analyse it, as the coaching staff and players will, in the coming week. It's a hard goal to watch without turning to Anton, if he's sitting next to you, and asking him what was going on.
The first goal had been enough grim viewing, especially looking at Stach starting with the goalscorer Lesley Ugochukwu right behind him, Lesley Ugochukwu, who scored by heading in a corner in his last match; the same Lesley Ugochukwu who Stach doesn't turn to look at once as Kyle Walker's cross, from a throw-in out wide, is delivered. It goes right onto this Lesley Ugochukwu's unmarked bonce and he heads it in. Congratulations Lesley Ugochukwu on two headed goals in two games. At least Stach wasn't alone in this mess, from Karl Darlow booting an easy pass out of play, to Harrison left alone trying to close two players down out wide, to Pascal Struijk bouncing about at the front post, to Joe Rodon, who could see Ugochukwu from his position, twerking, two yards behind him.
A team that was supposedly built for set-piece security was left bereft by a short throw and a cross. And a team that was supposedly built for midfield strength let a long shot go off without a hint of press or tackle. And when creativity is being sacrificed so Stach can help with both those things and he isn't, perhaps it's time to go back to the Everton plan of two holding midfielders with Tanaka and tweak it: keeping Longstaff, dropping Stach.
Other changes can help turn this into a bad day instead of a bad team. Afterwards, Farke said, "I don't think it makes sense just to change for the sake of it, there must be a reason for it." It's the sort of thing he tends to say before finding the sake of it and making some changes. "Everything has to make sense," he added, and letting Tanaka find some different routes to goal, especially while Okafor and Gnonto are out, makes sense.
It also makes sense, at some point, to use the expensively bought new goalkeeper and central defender. Darlow isn't doing much wrong but he isn't keeping clean sheets. Ditto Pascal Struijk. That might be too much all at once but that depends on what Farke decides to attack West Ham with, and whether Dan James can be fit enough to ensure Elland Road doesn't spend all night looking from Crysencio Summerville on one wing, for them, to Brenden Aaronson, on another wing, for us.
The upside is that there are changes that can be made, while history is screaming at us that losing awful games to Burnley shouldn't matter. It didn't stop Leeds doing the needful last season and it needn't this. As in the last two seasons, Leeds have the resources to end this campaign as a much better team than the one turning out in autumn. The problem with not taking three points from this relegation rival, though, is that those three points will have to be taken from other games against better teams. This defeat means our team will have to become even better than it otherwise might, if it can. ⭑彡