Leeds United 0-4 Arsenal: Styling it out
The biggest intrigue of the day was Daniel Farke, managing to simultaneously stir the pots marked 'transfer window' and 'department of unreliable goalkeepers'. And just why did every Norwegian goalkeeper sign for Spurs in the 1990s, anyway?
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Although the later arrivals of Duberry, Mills et al made Danny Granville seem like exactly the sort of player David O'Leary was shopping for, George Graham had brought him in. And before long every player Graham had signed was sold.
Everything seemed set for success, his way, with an ambitious club with a family ethos that would pay him handsomely. Nobody can say for sure why Don Revie, in the end, didn't go to Everton.
I wouldn't want to be watching this match every week, and it's worth looking at the common denominators. Because I've enjoyed most of every match Leeds United have played at Elland Road this season, even in defeat: they've usually been keenly fought, competitive encounters, the result not settled until the end and plenty of reasons to applaud both teams.
Then Arsenal turned up, and the Peacock Ground got a good luck at the Premier League champions elect. Well. They're not every exciting, are they? If this is the best team in Europe, north London can keep them. I'm pretty confident I'll be having a better time watching Leeds playing Nottingham Forest next weekend than anyone suffering through the safety-catch Gunners going through set-play routines against Sunderland.
I'm tempted to accuse Arsenal of cultural appropriation. They've spent a billion pounds on players since Mikel Arteta took charge, much of it on extravagantly talented forwards. Yet they choose to play like a less attack-minded version of Egil Olsen's 1990s Norway, as if they've cobbled themselves a squad of cloggers for a shoestring. Players like Martin Ødegaard, Gabriel Jesus, Eberechi Eze and Gabriel Martinelli could cut most teams in the Premier League apart at will if given the licence to do so, and indeed they were combining in a rampage against Leeds United's disconsolate players at the end of this match. But only at the end.
Leeds fans moan about Daniel Farke leaving Ao Tanaka on the bench. Arteta had left that quartet on his, picking just three attackers at the front of seven sturdy workhorses, as if his study of The Arsenal Way had extended to George Graham's Leeds. Even then, Viktor Gyökeres' centre-forwad skills are more battering than dizzying and Kai Havertz isn't much of anything, leaving Noni Madueke — starting after Bukayo Saka was injured in the warm up — as the single source of flair for the supposed best team around. Certainly not the best to watch.
It was the sort of paranoid, ultra-cautious line-up Sean Dyche would send out to win an away point, only Leandro Trossard is a bit better than Dwight McNeil. In Arsenal's case it was designed to win set-pieces. Their infamous set-piece coach, Nicolas Jover, was a curious sight whenever they won a corner: Arteta would retreat and Jover would stride forward through their technical area, not actually issuing instructions but pumping both fists in the air like a child being let through the gates at Disneyland, as if he's just really happy seeing a corner taken.
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It paid off for them, eventually. There wasn't much on show in the first half an hour, apart from bright early pressing by Brenden Aaronson forcing some panicked defending, like Jurriën Timber kicking straight up into the sky. At the other end, Arsenal tried some corners and crosses but Pascal Struijk was playing conspicuously well against them. Then the Gunners kept the ball alive from a corner cleared wide, Madueke beat Gabriel Gudmundsson and put over a cross of high quality, and all Arsenal's training was put to good use. There was William Saliba, putting Ethan Ampadu on the ground; and there were three players, going to the front post together, Martín Zubimendi the one who popped his head up to divert the cross home.
They didn't have to work as hard as that for their second goal. Another corner, another in-swinger, and although white shirts successfully kept dark blue ones away from the ball at the front post, there was no plan for Karl Darlow punching the ball, two-fisted, into his net.
Leeds looked utterly dejected but put on a decent show in the second half until, with a 2-0 lead and half-an-hour to go, Arteta finally relaxed enough to put some attacking players on the pitch. The game then became as easy for Arsenal as it probably should have been all along. Ødegaard played into space behind Gudmundsson, Martinelli beat Struijk and crossed — within inches of a weirdly flat-footed Joe Rodon — for Gyökeres to finish while Jayden Bogle clutched air at the back post. Jesus and Eze arrived for the closing stages and after Jesus held off Struijk, turning in the penalty area and shooting powerfully into the bottom corner for four, the Gunners came rollocking down the pitch again from kick-off, shooting again hoping for five. They missed, but made their coaching staff's day by winning another corner. Another chance for Jover to stride about, shaking his fists as if he was playing imaginary maracas, the coaching world's Bez — if you can picture Arteta as Shaun Ryder.
I was left with the impression of a team that is primed to mess up its title attempt, even with a six point lead, even amid the hyperbole greeting this result. After two 0-0 draws and a defeat to visitors from Old Trafford, The Guardian suggested that 'It would be a touch too hyperbolic to suggest this was a season-defining afternoon for Arsenal's title ambitions', but The Athletic was more sure that, 'in its own way, this game could be season-defining'. It was 'delicious and effective medicine for a team that needed more from its attacking components' — but only after Leeds 'experienced death by corners in the first half'.
The process seems clear, that it's only once the set-pieces have done their work that the attacking players' talents are allowed to shine. Arteta seems to be reducing his billion pound squad to the sort of obsessive optimising that unites men's health podcasters with Charles Reep's tactical fear of possession from the 1950s.
What looms most dangerously between Arteta and trophies is the absence of any joy in this team's pursuit of success, because if they're only allowed to have a good time after they've set-pieced their way to 3-0, well, they've only ended with a three goal gap in five Premier League matches, and two of them were against Leeds. Excluding penalties, their top scorer is Leandro Trossard with five. Few players were more having more fun than Eze with Crystal Palace last season, but he hasn't had a shot in a Premier League match since 23rd November.
Even if they do win the title this season, I suspect Arsenal will do it looking like a bunch of LinkedIn influencers too hollowed out by getting on the grind at 6am every morning to have had any fun. Their main preoccupation seems to be conquering the doubts of their home supporters who become hideously twitchy if they so much as concede a goal. Their away supporters forgot all about singing 'Leeds are falling apart again' until it was 4-0, presumably too preoccupied with fear of their title challenge doing the same thing. If only Manchester City would cheer up, I suspect they'd overhaul this paranoid crew quite merrily.
As for Leeds United, by rights and status ours is the team that should be aspiring to Egil Olsen's 1990s blueprints, thank you very much. All we need is a 6ft 4in Norwegian striker available for less than £45m, if anyone knows of one going? Tore André Flo, we had you, but we never knew how much we needed you!
Daniel Farke said, "there is not too much to over-interpret into this game," against what he said is, "the best side currently in Europe". He's probably right, as most interpretation goes straight to the gaps in quality. Zubimendi caught my eye with one lovely pass that deceived Anton Stach — it was inside his own half, of course — bravery on the ball that our players can't imagine themselves succeeding with. Our players know as well as we do that they didn't cost Leeds £55m.
Days like this, with tenacious and high quality defenders from the top of the league crowding every space, highlight how many times Leeds' players turn down the chance of a quick switch or pass forward. It's an abundance of caution but it comes naturally when you're Ilia Gruev, say, trying to thread a pass between Declan Rice and Zubimendi, in such a way that Aaronson, say, can control it without Timber taking it away. Everything is against you in that situation, except the safer option.
Another curiosity is the mesmerising effect Arsenal seem to have on Anton Stach in particular. His hopelessness at the Emirates had receded into distant memory as he has adapted to the Premier League in the months since, but he was back to looking oddly hypnotised out of possession. He kept creeping towards 50-50 challenges as if he wanted to tell the ball a secret, followed by a gasp and a slow turn as the Cannonists spirited it away.
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The biggest intrigue of the day was Farke, managing to simultaneously stir the pots marked 'transfer window' and 'department of unreliable goalkeepers'. "Our board knows exactly my feelings about what I think we should do during this window," he said, when asked for his thoughts about signing a new goalie. He was leaving the casement open for a new custodian, but who? Maybe this opportunity can solve the Egil Olsenism that Jørgen Strand Larsen is refusing to help us with. Erik Thorstvedt? Frode Grodås? Espen Baardsen? And just why did every Norwegian goalkeeper sign for Spurs in the 1990s, anyway? ⭑彡
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