Crystal Palace 0-0 Leeds United: Thumping on the door
Daniel Farke's best plan against Crystal Palace would have been luring referee Thomas Bramall to some abandoned building on the morning of the match, perhaps on the pretext of getting Pat Bamford's autograph, then bundling him into the basement and locking him in.
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Legendary goalkeeper Dino Zoff was their manager. They had players like Diego Simeone, Alessandro Nesta, Juan Veron, Simone Inzaghi and Dino Baggio. And they all stayed at home so Leeds were reacquainted with Fabrizio Ravanelli, out of Middlesbrough.
All told, since taking charge at Bramall Lane, Neil Warnock had signed 45 strikers. In the end the partnership he was looking for was Neil Shipperley and Danny Webber.
There are always plenty of ways Daniel Farke could have won a match he didn't. Pick this player, not that one, start with this formation, change to this other one, encourage more attacking, discourage daft defending. Be more aggressive, be more cautious, make an earlier sub, don't change what's working. He hears choruses of advice from the stands and online and the upshot is always the same. Marcelo Bielsa defined it: the best plan was always the one you didn't try.
Daniel Farke's best plan against Crystal Palace would have been luring referee Thomas Bramall to some abandoned building on the morning of the match, perhaps on the pretext of getting Pat Bamford's autograph, then bundling him into the basement and locking him in, tying the door handle for good measure with his favourite Sheffield United scarf. And leaving him there, harming nobody, until his replacement blew for full-time at Selhurst Park, when somebody could make an anonymous phone call letting his family know how to find him. Once freed, I'm quite sure all he'd say to anyone was that he was pretty sure Patrick would still be along soon, like the man on the phone had promised.
Thomas Bramall is the worst kind of referee because he's too stupid to be as pedantic as he wants to be. The pedantry, for example: insisting that Lukas Nmecha stand exactly ten yards from a Palace free-kick, on the special white line Bramall had sprayed on the floor, instead of well behind it; or mithering Brennan Johnson over the position of a throw-in like a malfunctioning sat-nav.
Then, the stupidity, after showing Gabriel Gudmundsson a yellow card for a mundane foul in the centre circle. What follows is agonising as the pleading Palace players, the calm voices of his assistants and the worried faces of Leeds prevail on Bramall, for about thirty seconds, as he looks from one to the other, looks confused, looks for help, looks in his notebook, and finally looks in his pocket so he can show Gudmundsson a red card, because he'd forgotten Gudmundsson had been booked before.
Perhaps, for a second, Thomas Bramall felt embarrassed. But I'm sure then he reassured himself that at least he'd made Nmecha stand in entirely the wrong place the way he'd wanted, so his esteem survived intact.
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That bulletproof ego stood firm in the second half when Johnson, after receiving an overdue yellow card, committed a worse foul than Gudmundsson's second. "It's only a foul, only a foul," Bramall whined as Leeds players enclosed, enquiring, and his face betrayed his astonishment that they were even questioning him. I can only conclude that Bramall's self-esteem obliterates his memory, because he looked like he'd even forgotten why everyone was mad at him in the first place.
It should be hard for a referee's pride to survive two opposing managers standing together on the touchline and despairing to each other about their joined sufferance to this dimwitted despot. Oliver Glasner never makes public comments about referees, but he seemed to have plenty to say privately to Farke, and much of it seemed to be backing his counterpart up. The one note of praise I have for Bramall, in these fractious and partisan times, is for the way he can bring antagonists together. Even if it's only to collaborate on locking him in the basement of an abandoned building.
Our Peacocks did have some fortune in this game. Leeds were given a penalty when Will Hughes', presumably trying to protect his freckles from the dim south London sunlight, raised his hand to the ball. Jaka Bijol survived his own brush with a second yellow. A Palace goal was ruled out for offside when the ball was nodded in by Jefferson Lerma, after Karl Darlow made an exceptional stop from his first header. But this fortune was not luck, just normal decisions any competent referees would have made correctly.
Fortune was working against United, too. Dominic Calvert-Lewin's firm header was saved by Walter Benitez, who held four-fifths of the ball behind his goaline. Calvert-Lewin also put the penalty a foot wide, and there was nobody but him to chastise for that. Leeds had already missed the best chance of the game when the misfortune was that it fell to Brenden Aaronson, who got a bit excited and hit across goal and wide.
Thomas Bramall's intervention was felt most keenly, though, because this looked like a game Farke had prioritised to win. The fixture fell in Leeds' favour, between Palace's two Conference League games, so main players were missing for the weary hosts. After a physical, set-piecey approach beat the Eagles 4-1 at Elland Road, Farke opted for more of that stuff, putting Nmecha up front with Calvert-Lewin and Aaronson, bringing Bijol in, choosing the sturdy height of James Justin over Jayden Bogle. It wasn't quite the Okafor 'n' Tanaka, Gnonto, James and Buonanotte flavour of all-out attacking, but it was a sign that Farke had written a 'plus three' for this weekend on his predictor wallchart.
While eleven were playing eleven it was working, because Glasner was being typically odd with his own team. He was talking in the build up about losing the physical battle at Elland Road and seemed to be trying to prove something here, matching Leeds long throw for long throw, corner for corner, playing long ball in a gale. It didn't work because he'd built his line-up around little Will Hughes and a clutch of quick countering forwards who, when they were allowed to, gave United's big centre-backs plenty of trouble on the turn. If Palace had played to their strengths they could have caused Leeds a lot of problems.
As it was, even with a player advantage and a whole half to play, Palace couldn't come up with much against United's 5-3-1. Leeds deserve a lot of credit for getting through the whole game without allowing a shot on target. Their discipline, concentration and commitment were exemplary, and remarkable given this team was known, for two previous seasons, for passing and controlling their way through massed ranks of Championship defenders.
Last season Southampton completely failed to grip their new reality in a higher division and made themselves a laughing stock, but United have adapted not only to a different way of playing but a different form of ego. In the Championship, Leeds were measuring their esteem by their victories. Now they take pride from not losing.
So this was not the win we were looking for, but the race away from 18th was kind: four teams in it, four teams drawing. Leeds lost a chance to pull away, but everybody else missed a chance to gain. And the mid-match switch, from trying to win away to trying to get away holding all the referee would permit them, spoke well of United's capacity for getting this season's job done. For as long as Thomas Bramall is allowed to roam freely, strutting into fields and refereeing all the pleasure out of games, teams will have to adapt to the world his ego creates for them. And that's while adapting already within the world that's yours for being newly promoted, near the bottom of the Premier League.
If you can't win, don't lose, and at full-time Leeds United were reminded that they have supporters who will thank them as much for that ethic as they will for free-flowing 5-0 wins. With eight games to play we're now past the point when anyone should care about this team's longer term, whether a new no.10 could have unlocked defences or different goalies could have pushed Leeds into midtable already, or whether this signing or that signing could take this team to its next level.
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Last season, with eight games to go, the best of the promoted teams were nine points from safety. This season, eight games to go is when United's results only need to match or better at least one of the three teams below them. All the rest can be as futile as a referee thumping on a locked door in an abandoned warehouse basement somewhere far, far, far from a game. ⭑彡
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