Leeds United 0-0 Manchester United: Fade into you
This game was important for the players to build up their fitness, and then fans are encouraged to treat it that way, watching carefully to see if the players are getting their sprints in. Never mind expected goals, give me the expected Body Mass Index and a trophy to go along with it.
The promoters of this friendly game in Stockholm got lucky that it was a clash of Premier League roses and not an all-Championship match. Or it could have been a divisional mismatch — Leeds United and their enemies from Old Trafford came close to swapping leagues last season. As it is, they'll both start in the top flight in August, and we can conclude from this game that Leeds are as well equipped to survive as their red rose rivals for 17th place.
We're not supposed to read anything into this match, which raises the question of why anyone was encouraged to pay money to watch it — and pay over and over again, if they got the wrong side of LUTV. The answer is the money to be made by billing these two clubs against each other, in whatever shapes they turn up in. It's like buying a ticket for a rehearsal performed by understudies. Sean Longstaff transferred from Newcastle United two days earlier, but here he was in the role of 'Leeds United' — just stick the shirt on and pretend it's been your whole life.
This was not Leeds United versus Manchester United in any competitive sense, as the two teams — four teams, if you consider the half-time changes — were only in it for fitness and practising and getting used to playing with some new pals in new ways. The result was not important but if the result was not important what were we all doing, taking so much interest? Some of the new players looked good — but remember not to read into that, this was not a meaningful test. Wilf Gnonto and Jayden Bogle turned some tricks on, but remember, football is too serious a sport to have Harlem Globetrotters style fun. The game was important for the players to build up their fitness, but then fans are encouraged to treat it that way, to put down on their pools coupons that 'both teams will build fitness' then frown at the pitch, watching as carefully as the fitness coaches to see if the players are getting their sprints in. Never mind expected goals, give me the expected Body Mass Index and a trophy to go along with it.
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The way this friendly most accurately portrayed real, unfriendly football was the opportunity to mither Daniel Farke. Even league football matches sometimes feel like the ordeal we have to go through to get to the real action, a press conference, and that's how it was here. Pat Bamford's absence from the squad list loomed over Stockholm's Strawberry Arena, where ninety minutes of football had to be gone through before Farke could be questioned about this attention-grabbing albatross. All well and good about the 23 players who did play, but can we ask about the one who isn't here?
It's fair enough, because anything we do say about the performances in this match will be immediately undercut by the truism that you can't draw any conclusions from friendlies. I mean, I don't think you can ever draw any conclusions from any football game ever, because there's always another one coming along, but that never stops anyone: only friendly games will put takes on pause. Jack Harrison is a decent example of why timing is important to conclusions. Over three seasons Harrison scored eighteen and assisted eighteen as part of the best Leeds United team for twenty years, going from Championship mid-table to 9th in the Premier League, a hero. Then he scored another thirteen and assisted another eight as he tried to prevent the team's total disintegration over the next two seasons, scoring the team's last top-flight goal to make it 2-1 against Spurs on the last day, our last faint glimmer of hope. Then he played for Everton for two seasons so now he gets booed by Leeds fans.
In retrospect perhaps he should have drawn his own conclusions and got out while the getting was still good, not bothering with that last season when only Rodrigo scored more. After all, while Raphinha took the plaudits at Brentford at the end of 2021/22, walking the pitch on his knees and leaving Leeds behind as a hero, it was Harrison who had scored the 94th minute goal that ensured Leeds stayed up. His mistake was staying for Jesse Marsch's second season instead of quitting while he was ahead. A line about Harrison in The Athletic's report this weekend sent chills down my spine: 'We await the coming friendlies to see how the narrative around him develops'. Do we indeed. Or would we be better waiting to find out concrete things like whether he stays and plays well or badly, or gets sold or loaned again, instead of morphing him into something so miserable as a 'narrative'.
As a football player, Harrison put in one good cross in this match, but it was classic Harrison, not really aimed at anyone, just put into a very dangerous area. Which might work better when Lukas Nmecha has got used to him, and Harrison has got the Dyche 'n' Moyes ache out of his legs. Or those crosses might work better somewhere else if Harrison goes away. Nmecha got closer to a cross from Bogle that just evaded his near post forehead, a chance that Luciano Becchio would have glanced in, and otherwise new signing Nmecha had a pleasantly Becchioesque afternoon. He challenged, he ran, he fought, he chased his own first touch halfway across the pitch. He looked as advertised, energetic, strong and willing.
Joel Piroe was an interesting contrast in the second half, dropping deep and dropping through balls to continue his recent transformation into a new Pablo Hernandez in waiting. I can already see Piroe's future, after he reaches his thirties, perhaps back in the Netherlands, racking up assists as a deep-lying second striker, contributing goals of his own by running onto lay-offs from his own incisive passes, inspiring a mid-table side to push for European glory and earning cult status with their supporters, playing until he's 38. Unfortunately this isn't what anyone really needs from him right now, as a striker for Leeds United approaching his 26th birthday, but it's pleasant to watch.
Across the rest of the pitch: Ao Tanaka, brilliant. Gnonto, jolly. Bogle, determined not to repeat his Sheffield United Premier League experience. Largie Ramazani, eager. Gabriel Gudmundsson, carefully copying Bogle. Jaka Bijol and Sebastiaan Bornauw, tall and untested, except when the ball came near goal and things got a bit chaotic. Illan Meslier looked reset, perhaps with relief that he might be leaving, but making reaction saves and delivering precision passes to the wings like his first Premier League season. Ilia Gruev, hardworking. Sean Longstaff, the strongest suggestion that Leeds will stay up next season. He just doesn't feel like a player who will get relegated.
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Manchester United could do with some players who feel like that. As it is, and with all due caution about conclusions, they looked like a side craving relegation. Leeds controlled a lot of the game like this was still the Championship, although in a swanky new 4-3-3 formation: we'll have to wait and see if that's a new normal, or was bespoke for the Salfordians' 3-4-3 the way three-at-the-back was bespoke for Harrogate Town last summer. But the white-shirted reds looked their normal selves, getting in each other's way, yelling at each other, whinging and moaning and hating the embarrassment that comes with playing for modern day Manchester United. Their players lined up to greet Dan James at full-time, maybe wanting tips for how they get out and get their self-respect back.
Respect and self-respect were behind Daniel Farke's post-match revelations about Pat Bamford's future. The manager respects his striker too much to give him a reduced role; he thinks Bamford's self-respect should prevent him taking a bit-part anyway. So, Farke said, he had a "really, really open and honest conversation" with Bamford and told him to train with the Under-21s until he finds a new club. "It would make no sense just to let him run around the lake," he added, although Pazza Bamfs broodily circling water at a life-crossroads, perhaps at dusk, sounds like a scene from a romantic drama when he might meet another jogger making difficult life-choices and they start listening to Mazzy Star together. So that might not be so bad for him. Meanwhile, by giving Bamford so much "respect and transparency" and not waiting, as Farke put it, "until we got someone else in", the club now have a greater problem of attention on who someone else is and when they're coming in and how much for and how good they'll be. Which is what pre-season is all about anyway, not this kicking a ball about stuff. ⭑彡