Leeds United 1-0 Brighton: Raise the roof

First work of the day was salvaging old Ellie the Elland Road Elephant flip-flops from the back of the cupboard they've been in while Leeds United kept ending seasons by pounding pavements instead of relaxing on the beach.

I'd almost forgotten what it's like to watch Leeds with hands in the air because we don't care, and I'm definitely not used to mingling disinterest in the action with this year's smug satisfaction. Back in the mid-Championship mid-2010s seasons used to end at Elland Road in a mighty sulk, nothing achieved and nothing to play for, and nothing to do except scour the stands in case Giuseppe Bellusci was showing his face and wonder whether Stuart Taylor should really be starting in goals rather than promising youngster Alex Cairns. 

It all came flooding back when Leeds began playing Brighton, hitting like one of Proust's madeleines every time a player stomped on a balloon. The contest soon deflated, while the fourth official struggled to let the air out of a trespassing beachball. This was the feeling I've tried to warn about when fans have wished for promotion by April or knowing relegation fates before May: it sounds relaxing in theory, but the reality traps you inside Elland Road just when the city's beer gardens are warming up. From very early on I felt a very early desire to skip the match, let the players lap the pitch, and go do something more interesting instead.

Daniel Farke played his part with his pre-match press conference, making emotional allusions to needing alignment — i.e., lots of money for new players — next season. United's manager wasn't just rushing us past the last two games into summer, but to the start of next season, and whether he'll be here or who else will be here and who will be in the team and who won't. People will tell you there's no time for sentimentality in football but, like Illan Meslier sitting alone in a penalty area while demolition crews moved in on the John Charles stand, maybe we all needed a little pause to reflect before plunging into Fabrizio Romano fuelled angst about the future.

All this was only true for Leeds United, though. This match mattered for the visitors, who helped haul it back towards being an occasion. The game became a determined and in the end hilarious contest, Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club will qualify for the Champions League versus No They Won't. As at White Hart Lane on Monday, once Leeds realised their opponents were playing for something they wanted, needed, the Peacocks realised their own mission: not letting them have it.

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Brighton, still, had a lot of their way. Leeds had a hard time a lot of the time getting out of their own half, and to keep their clean sheet they needed smart saves by Karl Darlow — one great one, off a direction-swapping shot — blocks in the six yard box by Ethan Ampadu, and misses in the six yard box by Jan Paul van Hecke. Sebastiaan Bornauw helped out with some clever interceptions and Jaka Bijol charged at every threat: I'll come back to Joe Rodon's defending in a moment, but first I want to highlight that he was up the wing again, and I'm starting to feel like his teammates are sending him after balls to the byline mainly because it's really funny.

Leeds were alert for their own, rare, chances. James Justin took down a long pass from Ampadu, turned his marker then put the ball on Dominic Calvert-Lewin's instep in front of the goalie, in among too many defenders. Dan James tried a pinger, Anton Stach tried a counter, Sean Longstaff nicked the ball as Brighton passed it around their penalty area — Lukas Nmecha and Wilf Gnonto couldn't finish the chance. A fourth sub, Joel Piroe, hit a gorgeous first timer from twenty yards that just missed the angle of post and bar, and it was a shame he couldn't sign his frustrating season off with some trademark beauty. Especially as the chance had come when Brighton's sub and our old pal, Georginio Rutter, lost the ball in midfield. Piroe had been flicking his ears in the first half while they were both warming up. 

I'll argue that Rutter's good natured reception, tickled by old teammates and serenaded by the fans, was part of what unlocked this match. The flippant testimonial atmosphere was suiting Leeds, who brought Sam Byram on for five sentimental minutes — and nine of stoppage time — at the end. But Brighton's manager, Fabian Hürzeler, who is only six months older than Little Sam, seemed determined to resist James Milner — seven years older than both — and the way he was wistfully warming up his hamstrings, the only Brighton sub keeping himself ready, for the last quarter of an hour. Hürzeler brought on Solly March instead, presuming that was the best way to keep the match sensible, to get his team into the Champions League.

Hürzeler was wrong. Far from switching them off, Byram only turned Leeds on, typified by Rodon starting stoppage time by thundering through a 50-50. A few minutes later Longstaff won a loose ball for Byram, who played it along the line for Nmecha like Tyler Roberts giving it to Mateusz Klich, that one time against Aston Villa. Jan Paul van Hecke had it covered, and then he didn't: and then Dominic Calvert-Lewin was beating Lewis Dunk and the goalie to the back pass, and then he was stroking the ball into the empty net while Dunk took his legs away, and then he was running around behind the Kop goal without his shirt, without his vest, without any of this being strictly necessary, with a massive grin on his face.

Brighton were a hilarious contrast amid our celebrations. Hürzeler put himself into an urgent tactical chat with his keeper, pointing to different areas of the pitch, acting the role of a composed strategist with ideas for winning before stoppage time ran out. He had to keep this looking like it mattered, when deep down he must have been fearing a dunking in the bogs from Milner, his angry elder brother. Leeds were released from any such tension and that helped their resistance to whatever Hürzeler had for them: Bijol blocked a shot, Darlow commanded a cross, Gnonto flew through the air to get a clearing nodder on a loose ball. 

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When full-time blew, Hürzeler tried starting on the Leeds bench. But everyone laughed him off and went to give Georginio a hug, and the pitch was cleared for the Leeds players to be welcomed back, and cheered, one by one, even Illan Meslier. But not Anton Stach. Leeds United are never allowed happiness without blood, and he was stretchered off in the second half with a gory ankle and didn't make the parade. That's a more glorious story than way back when, for example, Mirco Antenucci was sitting up the back of the West Stand, claiming he hadn't been told about everyone else's post-match lap of grudging forbearance. They'll be taking the roof off that stand soon, and raising another, higher, higher, up where days like this are promising to send Leeds United. ⭑彡

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