Leeds United 1-0 Tottenham: The next dimensions

Leeds United needed this win after five tight games without one because it's easy to forget, when matches can go either way but don't go yours that, just as easily, they can.

The Peacocks have been either side or the middle of nine narrow margins so far this season. Taking out the 4-1 win over Newcastle United returns two wins and two defeats and only one gap wider than a goal, and that only gained by Bournemouth in last weekend's 94th minute. Even against champions Arsenal, when Leeds were impressive and lost, the team has been competitive in every game and that's an improvement on this time last year — against Arsenal, in particular. But it's not something you can use for much if, in any case, you don't win.

The defeat in Bournemouth was the harshest of autumn's five unwon games because of how much bad luck was involved: a ball bouncing off Dominic Calvert-Lewin's bicep and in, when his pectorals were right there; a ball given, by our goalkeeper, to Bournemouth to score. Tottenham fans might argue Leeds were lucky to keep Jayden Bogle on the pitch this weekend, but the truth is Leeds were further ahead of Spurs than they were behind Bournemouth and our three points were earned the way the Cherries' three were not. In other words, we could have beaten Bournemouth, but Tottenham couldn't have beaten us.

The Lilywhites have been an interesting case study in defeat because it sounds like they worked very hard to get beaten at Elland Road. Sometimes it's interesting to pay attention to what other clubs are saying about yours, and despite travelling to Leeds after three consecutive wins it sounds like the Spurs were marching nervously into Beeston.

"We knew everything," midfielder Sandro Tonali said after the match. "This week we trained a lot to play this game and it was tough from the start ... [Leeds] press really high, especially here in this stadium. I think sometimes when you find this [kind of] team you have to show all your personality, you have to play with the ball much better ... [when we face] a different game we have to change everything and we have to play our football always." But they didn't.

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Tonali's manager, Roberto De Zerbi, also said that Leeds United are not the norm, and are a team he had to train specifically for. "This game is another sport than other games we have done because their defensive phase was different than the other games," he said. 

He'd been talking about it in his pre-match press conference, too. "They have a clear style of play, not too many teams in the world defend in five, and in build-up they become four," he said. "Especially on the right side, they have a very good connection with the players on the right side." 

And, flipping back to his post-match comments, he reckoned he'd done enough work to solve that. "There was the solution, there was the space, there was the way to attack and to play better and to defend better the ball," he said. "But at the end, we didn't play like we wanted before the game."

Obviously it helps that Spurs are Spurs but it's noteworthy anyway that, after beating Coventry 3-1 and Chelsea and Crystal Palace 2-0 each, De Zerbi was expecting "another sport" in Leeds, a playing style that he says is a global rarity, and he was worried. And we should note down, too, that even with a change in personnel Leeds played to a similar pattern as at Bournemouth, only without a dumb concession to ruin their day. 

It was so much the same that after ten minutes James Trafford tried playing the same pass to Ao Tanaka that had undone everything at Dean Court. This time it was a-okay. And the team as a whole started by putting its foot down on Spurs the way it had for the first half an hour last weekend, too. Daniel Farke had opted for cannons over craft, Lukas Nmecha and Sean Longstaff replacing Dan James and Harry Wilson, and Tottenham were having to withstand crosses from either side, with their upper arms if necessary.

As at Bournemouth, but without conceding, Leeds lost some of their direction after 25 minutes didn't return a goal. Tottenham remembered what they'd been working on all week and had a decent quarter-hour. The Peacock Ground was murmuring uncomfortably. But ten minutes before half-time Bogle trod hard on Mathys Tel's ankle, standing foot meeting trailing leg, and the ensuing four minutes of VAR arguments roused the home fans and the home team and all but halted Tottenham's momentum.

It was an intriguing clash because I'd been waiting for Tel's booking. He'd fouled James Justin twice in two minutes, then ten minutes later barged Bogle out from under a high ball, interpreting De Zerbi's warnings about the Peacocks' right side as an invitation to test referee John Brooks' totting up processes. Another ten minutes went by before Bogle, who Farke says is, "sometimes too much like a butterfly and not like an eagle and is soft in a positive way," stood on Tel's foot and turned the game. 

There are a couple of points to add here on the post-fouling reactions. First is looking at how Bogle walked calmly away from the incident, compared to Pedro Perro, who after fouling Nmecha in front of the benches just after half-time sprang to his feet and sprinted off the pitch to scream in the face of the fourth official. He was booked for the foul but not for the reaction but Spurs fans, wondering why referees don't give them more decisions, might want to think about that moment compared to Ethan Ampadu's policy of persistent polite enquiries — his long debate with the fourth official at Bournemouth ended with them both chuckling last weekend. Leeds fans wondering what happened to our 'dirty' side can look there, too, at how these days the Peacocks are killing 'em with kindness. The second point is about the dreadfully predictable abusive direct messages Bogle received on Instagram after the game, which represent the absolute dregs of loser behaviour, sent by people who have subjugated their self-worth to the Premier League and racism to make them feel better about themselves. And to Tottenham, of all teams.

Tottenham were able to bring on Dominic Solanke when Tel couldn't continue, and Conor Gallagher, Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur when the second half wasn't going their way. Leeds, meanwhile, had called on a player acquired for the summer's lowest Premier League loan fee, left-back Melvin Bard, when Gabriel Gudmundsson couldn't continue after half-time. His impact was four times all four Spurs subs.

My overall point in this report is that it's daft to treat every mid-table match like a referendum, to decide Leeds United = bad after Bournemouth, that Leeds United = good after Spurs, to declare Sean Longstaff definitively better than Anton Stach in midfield after one game or definitively worse after another. And Melvin Bard is a great illustration of the idea. Based on this second half you'd never pick Gudmundsson to play for Leeds again, as our new full-back, short and balding, tackled tough and attacked all sprightly like the player we thought Laurens De Bock was going to be. It took twenty minutes for the South Stand to sing Melvin's name, and I'd love a time machine to bring Melvyn Sterland back for the right side and let us have Mervyn Day in goal, too. 

But what really stood out about Bard was that he plays in a different way. Gudmundsson loves the byline and a low cross. His aim is always taking on the right-back and flashing the ball across the six yard box, hoping Calvert-Lewin (or James Justin, at Arsenal) can connect and grant him a rare assist. Bard isn't interested in the byline, though. He doesn't look to take his opponents on, but to send a cross swooping into an empty penalty area as soon as he can after crossing halfway. The excitement was as much about seeing something new as seeing him play so well.

Which is something about where Leeds are at now, and where they were this time last season. This was their tenth game of the Premier League season. Last season's tenth game was a 3-0 defeat at Brighton, first of the run of four culminating in a whole new look after playing Manchester City. At this point, back then, Leeds were a team with dimensions we hadn't yet seen, possibilities we hadn't yet explored — and they're like that now, again. 

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Melvin Bard is a cheap back-up for Gudmundsson, but we've just glimpsed how with him we can play a different way. In defence, Nico Elvedi was equally deserving of the player of the match award given to Tarik Muharemović, and over the last couple of months they've created a question about what Leeds will look like when Joe Rodon — who came off the bench at the end — is fit again. Anton Stach hasn't been fit, nor Ilia Gruev, and if Longstaff can get over his dawdling habit and he and Ao Tanaka can keep their shots a little lower, Leeds could develop a different look to midfield.

And the match was settled by two of our hoped-for attackers functioning, luxuriously, as finishers. Farke said Harry Wilson was left out, tactically, to see how Tottenham coped with the physicality of Nmecha. Noah Okafor, he added, wasn't medically ready for more than fifteen minutes. Within two minutes of them coming on, for Nmecha and Tanaka, they'd won the game.

Instead of letting Ampadu unwind his chucking arms, Bard took a shorter throw-in on the left and directed it deliberately at Calvert-Lewin. He flicked a header inside, where Wilson was between two defenders, while Okafor ran towards the scene of Tottenham's panic. Who veered the ball to him? Maybe the defender? Who cares. It was at Wilson's insistence, matched by Okafor's neat first touch around Bentancur's weakness and his flashing finish on the run. Leeds' players celebrated, Tottenham's surrounded the ref. 

It was exactly what Farke had been looking for when he brought Wilson and Okafor on, but he won't get much credit for that from fans who have been looking for that since Wilson was brought in, in summer. Nobody wanted it to take this long for our new playmaker to instigate a goal. But then again, Roberto De Zerbi spent all week telling his three-wins-from-three players what he wanted from them at Elland Road, and left Yorkshire saying they "did not show character, personality, courage".

What Leeds showed was that there's more around this team that we haven't seen yet, enough to take games like this or any of the five before it and tilt them towards our team. Ten games isn't enough for them to have everything ready already, but it's enough to feel like watching the next 28 is going to be worthwhile. ⭑彡

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