Leeds United 1-0 Fulham: A place in the scene
There was nothing low-key about anyone's celebrations, and why not? Leeds hadn't just waited a long time for this goal, they'd worked a long time for it, ever since Gabriel Gudmundsson scored the other way down London.
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Tired after playing for Leeds against Reading, Phil Masinga had to be persuaded into the first match in South Africa. The next day, for Ghana, Tony Yeboah was volleying fresh.
Yorath said he owed everything to the grounding Revie and Collins gave him at Leeds, but those were the values of people who'd grown up in wartime. Yorath was a product of his own times, times that were moving quickly. To move on, he had to be allowed to forget some of what he'd been taught.
More fool me, for trying to have rational thoughts while a Leeds United match was drawing close to stoppage time. I was thinking that the Peacocks deserved all the points, but it's hard for newly promoted teams to get what they should get out of Premier League matches. We want to win our home games, but a point isn't terrible against an in-form side like Fulham. The substitutions seem to have blunted our boys, and Lukas Nmecha doesn't seem to realise that Jørgen Strand Larsen's agent is a Leeds fan, sitting in the stand, in the month when players can be replaced. Four minutes of stoppage time? That doesn't seem like enough. Ethan Ampadu is crossing. Lukas Nmecha is volleying. The whole team is knee-sliding towards the north-west corner of carnage and I'm forgetting every thought I've ever had in my life.
I imagine this moment brought all the thoughts and feelings flooding back for Gabriel Gudmundsson, the 94th minute own-goaler of Fulham away in September, whose brilliant performance in this match was undercut by his personal quest to score. It must have done something to the rest of the team, too, who had let their lead go in stoppage time in Newcastle. Leeds haven't been strangers to dramatic endings this season, but there was something new about this one, combining a winner in the right net with an empty net at the other end. No wonder Daniel Farke was pumping his fists for all he's worth, one punch for each Premier League point he ever won with Norwich, the albatross he's fighting this season.
Late pre-match injuries to Jaka Bijol and Anton Stach meant Farke, who had already decided to put Karl Darlow in goal, had to make more late changes to his side than such a steady manager might like. A new goalkeeper behind James Justin at centre-back? The signs all pointed to kerploding. But the team's recent tactical flexibility came in very useful and Fulham couldn't decide what to do about Jayden Bogle, a right-back of five becoming a right-winger when Leeds had the ball. They couldn't be sure about Justin, either, who was right-back on the ball but used Bogle's cover as an excuse for bombing forward into the middle of their penalty area. When they had the ball Fulham were faced with one Ethan Ampadu, looking like eleven, building his own wall across the width of United's defence while Ilia Gruev hovered behind him, warning brave Cottagers away.
Fulham brought some storylines to Elland Road. Harry Wilson, who could have been making five Welshmen in United's team this season, tried keeping the door open for a future transfer by joking along with the Kop's booing. When he went to take a corner, he plonked the ball two yards outside the quadrant, waited a beat for the outrage, then pointed at the fans and laughed. Great banter. Later, as Gudmundsson broke toward the same stand in the second half, with open pitch and Dominic Calvert-Lewin ahead of him, Wilson scythed him down and strode away, not looking back for his booking, the outrage all around him now very real. Shit banter. On this performance, we don't want him anyway.
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Wilson's foul was violent enough to teeter towards a red card, but as a yellow in the rules it was more a judgement on the other yellows that referee Chris Kavanagh was dishing out. Hacking a player down, by the book, merits the same punishment as Ampadu got for genuinely misunderstanding which way a free-kick was given and throwing the ball to the wrong place. Kavanagh, devoid of emotional intelligence, showed a robotic yellow card despite recently missing a clear display of kick-away dissent by Fulham's Saša Lukić moments after that player had been booked. Looking the wrong way was a feature of Kavanagh's game, who took no action against Raúl Jiménez's timewasting crawl towards his replacement on the touchline, limping and moonwalking and singing 'Chris Kavanagh is a wanker'. The ref had his back turned to Fulham's player absolutely aching to be booked so he could tell Pascal Struijk off, at length, for complaining about it.
Fulham's timewasting was a sign that they were not enjoying their afternoon in Leeds. Had it ended a draw, the team starting 9th in the Premier League would have been happier. United were so dominant I forgot Karl Darlow was playing. United's attack, however, seemed in a fanciful mood, as if already inspired by new loanee Facundo Buonanotte's presence on the bench into a more creative and carefree style of play that they need to wait until he's on the pitch to pull off.
Brenden Aaronson is one of the players under threat from the new attacker, and a player perpetually locked within his own storylines. The USMNT's assistant coach was here to watch him, and almost saw another classic Aaronson goal. He made the chance for himself, hurling himself at a high tackle, racing onto a lofted pass from Bogle. One on one with the goalie, he was this close to styling out another celebration of nonchalant shrugging. Instead of hearing cheers as he hammered the ball into the top corner, he heard the angry voice of his purple-faced neighbours from childhood yelling over the fence about another broken window in the greenhouse they'd just had repaired. With an arm round the shoulder Calvert-Lewin, a sensitive chap who has missed a lot of sitters, snapped his teammate out of it.
Aaronson was, as is becoming needless to point out, brilliant in this game. And Noah Okafor also fully Alioski'd his own chance over the South Stand, while having a much less effective overall match. Okafor, on this showing, is most at risk from Buonanotte's late arrival, because Leeds can't do without what Aaronson is doing lately, a vital layer of workrate beneath the team's recent highlights. Okafor on the ball can be brilliant, but he is not finding ways to impose himself on matches, to make sure he's on the ball more often so more of what he does can come off.
Okafor's best moment was his vision for a reverse pass into space for Gudmundsson, who was wearing his redemption blinkers and tried to make up for his Craven OG by blazing a shot into the Kop. He'd been in the same place earlier and tried crossing low, in front of Okafor and Aaronson but behind Calvert-Lewin and Bogle. There were groans, some of them coming from me, but while Saturday was not United's most coherent attacking performance in ways this chance demonstrated, on Sunday I saw enough of Newcastle and Aston Villa pondering about behind a slow-moving ball to appreciate the fun in Leeds, where our wide players always have a full box of players to aim at. And miss, but the intent is not worth nothing.
It's something Strand Larsen, or any forward interesting Leeds, might take note of. If you interpret open-play expected goals as something teams create for their forwards, at Wolves this season he has been given on average 0.08 of a goal to score per ninety minutes. Calvert-Lewin, this season, is being offered 0.44 per ninety. Nmecha has had 0.40. The other temptation for Jørgen specifically is to complete Elland Road's links to Norway's three leading international strikers. Erling Haaland: born in Leeds, dad played here. Alexander Sørloth: dad Gøran had a trial here, scoring for the reserves as part of the striker search that led to buying Lee Chapman in 1990. Jørgen Strand Larsen? Maybe Leeds need to give his dad a job to clinch the deal, and meanwhile, I need to know whether Frank Strandli has children.
Any of that lot, fathers or sons, would have loved being on the end of this winner. Fulham had tried overloading the pitch with all the narrative they could, bringing on Tom Cairney, the six footer released from the Thorp Arch academy for being too small, and Kevin, the winger from Brazil who looked like a new Raphinha against us in September. Leeds brought on Nmecha, who looked drunk, with Wilf Gnonto and Ao Tanaka.
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As the added time was being announced over the tannoy, Leeds were scrambling their way through what you could get away with calling a twelve pass move, starting when Aaronson intercepted a loose ball in his own half, continuing when Ampadu and Tanaka backed up Aaronson and Gnonto as the ball popped out of tackles, all sending Ampadu to the right wing. To his left when he crossed first time were Gnonto, Aaronson, Calvert-Lewin and Nmecha, who flung his telescopic leg around Timothy Castagne for a low-key acrobatic volley into the bottom corner.
There was nothing low-key about anyone's celebrations, and why not? Leeds hadn't just waited a long time for this goal, they'd worked a long time for it, ever since Gabriel Gudmundsson scored the other way down London. Even when it all died down, Nmecha — now brimful with confidence and sent away by Aaronson controlling with a backheel flick around himself, swerving past a defender and playing a through ball — was only denied a second goal by Bernd Leno's strong-armed save. Leeds tried keeping the ball in the corner after that but the final sign of their charmed day came when, after he was brought on for the last two minutes to make sure of the points, the final whistle blew upon Sebastiaan Bornauw's firm header clear. Well played Seb. That's what it's like to get what you deserve. ⭑彡
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