Leeds United 1-1 Manchester United: Keeping busy
In the end Leeds United won a valuable point that could be important for the longer term progression of the club against its key performance indicators on and off the field. But this was one occasion when fans wanted more than that Premier League routine.
Leedsista is entirely written by me, a human person, and entirely funded by people like you, Leeds fans, who think decent non-AI, non-clickbait writing about their football team is worth £3 a month to read or £5 a month to listen to the podcast version.
If you enjoy reading what I write, I hope you'll consider becoming a paying member to help keep it getting written.
Leeds scored their third goal while Cantona was off the pitch, having stitches. When he finally reappeared on the touchline he was no longer Elland Road's king in absentia, but a fallen one. Tomas Brolin had taken his crown.
Brett Ormerod, Brian Montenegro, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson, Carl Dickinson, Charlie Cresswell, Chris Dawson, Clarke Odour, Cody Drameh, Connor Roberts, Conor Shaughnessy, Crysencio Summerville, Curtis Weston.
Not necessarily the best of the rest but, you know, the rest.
Just after the hour Brenden Aaronson scored, suddenly and all on his own, and uncorked the match every fan at Elland Road had wanted to see. After the restart, Leeds United's players were roared on into thundering tackles, their attackers skipped across the front lines looking ready to score again, bruised limbs in the South Stand were now being matched by bruised limbs on the field in front of them. The big match Transpennine war of the roses rivalry had arrived.
And after three minutes of that the red side equalised, and the sudden deflation was a realisation that the match couldn't have been all we wanted it to be. Concentration, discipline and focus would have prevented the enemy's goal. But it's hard to concentrate on disciplined focus when your imagination is reeling into history book heroism and the crowd is urging you to tackle and dismantle not just the players in front of you but the ideas and principles underpinning them, i.e., Gary Neville as concept.
It was nice while it lasted. In the end Leeds United won a valuable point that could be important for the longer term progression of the club against its key performance indicators on and off the field. But this was one occasion when, for ninety minutes, fans would have forgiven their team for forgetting about relegation battles and clawing towards midtable and getting one point closer to a viable stadium redevelopment project and greater investment in new playing staff.
The day should have just been about beating Them, turning up in their true villainous form by dressing correctly in red shirts and black shorts. It's nigh on impossible, though, to drag any specific football match out from under the Premier League's crushing contexts and narratives and Elland Road couldn't resist that weight. The final score was 1-1, and the final stories were Leeds increasing their unbeaten run and the gap between them and 17th, and the opposing manager having a post-match argument, through the press, with his club's hierarchy, his last frustrated squawk before he was thrown after Chelsea's Enzo Maresca into the Premier League's sacking machine.
Their Monday morning sacking of Ruben Amorim helps Leeds fans feel better about this result. First, because it's nice to see, like Liverpool and Mo Salah, opposing teams plunged into chaos by their time in Beeston. Second, because if this felt like a great chance missed of beating these visitors for the first time in the league since 2002, it might not be the last great chance of the season. We're playing them again in April, and as it stands, they seem ready to let Darren Fletcher run things, under Jason Wilcox's watchful thumb, until summer.
This is not Leeds United's first promotion...
Relive the glories of 2020 and 1990 — and 1964, 1956, 1932, 1928 and 1924, too.
It's a shame this couldn't have been the game, though, and that Brenden Aaronson couldn't have been the player. He was ready to join in history with David Wetherall, with Brian Deane, with Brian Flynn, and his goal was good enough that it can still be added to the highlight reels anyway before future fixtures. Pascal Struijk wasn't doing much more in midfield than making sure Patrick Dorgu didn't get the ball, but while taking it off his toe he sent it vaguely forward. It was Ayden Heaven's ball to gather, but we know Aaronson better than he does, and we know that Aaronson is like one of those terriers that thinks every ball in the park is his to play with. He ran between Heaven and the ball, took it under control and into the penalty area with one touch, and slotted it into the bottom corner with the next.
We also know Aaronson well enough that him actually finishing that chance was not a given, and to chuckle at how Dominic Calvert-Lewin interrupted his cocky celebration by picking him up like a ragdoll full of feathers and throwing him around. We know him well enough, too, to want this glory for him, because whatever about his history here, Elland Road can't resist workrate. Unfortunately we also know that Brenden Aaronson isn't allowed nice things. All this glory should have been his sixteen months ago, when he equalised against Portsmouth in the 95th minute, but had the same chance again one minute later to win the match and missed. The fates, spinning their threads around him, are determined never to leave Aaronson alone.
Or they've been too busy weaving their fibres into Lucas Perri's pate. Three minutes of celebrations, tackles and long balls that Calvert-Lewin kept chasing were all ended by the ball's slow roll into the Gelderd End net. Amorim had made a change as soon as Leeds scored, adding Joshua Zirkzee to his team's feeble attack, and the Peacocks hadn't paid enough attention. He got free in midfield, played a through ball for Matheus Cunha, and as Perri ran out to meet him he slid a shot beneath him. 1-1, fun over.
Afterwards, Daniel Farke criticised Perri's decision to come out. "Normally I don't like to speak about individual mistakes," he said, but, "it was obvious Lucas took the wrong decision and came off his line. It's probably not even a chance, he's running away from goal." There was a little more to it than that, though. Struijk had let Zirkzee go in midfield, but stand-in midfielder Ilia Gruev hadn't taken the hint to get close to him. Cunha had run behind off Sebastiaan Bornauw, Joe Rodon's stand-in, someone Perri hasn't played with much and who plays without the volume of Big Joe. Unfamiliarity bred hesitation, and I wonder if Perri would have made a better decision behind a defender with whom he had a better understanding.
The whole match, in fact, suffered for some of its circumstances. Among the heavy Premier Leagueness afflicting it was the fixture list, the injury list, and the kick-off time. The visitors really were there to be beaten, but even in their sorry state a recently promoted team needs its best players, fully rested, to take full advantage. As it was, Leeds' starting eleven didn't include any of the strong, brave Welshmen that Farke loves so much. Joe Rodon was injured, Ethan Ampadu suspended through refereeing silliness, and not-Welsh but integral, Jayden Bogle missed the game with a bad calf. Farke said the reserves he called up, Bornauw, Gruev and James Justin, had already been through too much in the draw at Anfield, and it was clear they needed the four days rest their opponents had after their last game. Mostly forgotten amid all the attention on this biggest of matches, they're all off to Newcastle to play on Wednesday night as well.
Leeds looked tired and Elland Road felt cold, and the Premier League and its broadcast chums would do well to wonder how much of this flogging their dead horse 'product' can take. No amount of hype and highlights packages can lift the atmosphere to good ol' days levels when fans are brought out, in the freezing cold at lunchtime on the Sunday before the first Monday of the year, to watch a tired team straining to rouse its stiff muscles to meet the occasion.
This was a flat match. It looked like Ilia Gruev and Anton Stach had read the memos about the rivalry and were ready for some cult heroism in their early challenges. But they couldn't overcome their midfield opponents, who then couldn't feed the feeble red attack. Out of possession, Farke was using a narrowed 3-5-2 man-to-man against Amorim's 3-4-3 and the match got stuck between the Devils' superiority in midfield and the Peacocks' superiority ahead of them. Out of that, Leeds had the best chance of the first half. Dominic Calvert-Lewin hasn't scored in his last two appearances but has pulled off two sublime finishes, one ruled out for offside at Anfield, this one — a typically elegant header on Stach's cross — coming off the post. At the other end, from a corner, Perri pulled off a superb save from Leny Yoro's point blank header.
The second half featured a turbo version of Noah Okafor zooming around Yoro on the outside, twice, but Leeds looked restricted down the left by another quirk of the 12.30pm kick-off time: whenever they looked to pass to the east, Gabriel Gudmundsson was there with his hand over his face shielding his eyes from the low sun behind the West Stand, not looking like a great person to give the ball to. The sooner the enormous new main stand is built, the better for Leeds to take advantage of weak right-backs on winter lunchtimes. Otherwise it was more of the same until Aaronson's stride into history, and out again, and a late lurch at victory from the bench that might have brought more rewards had Lukas Nmecha had more quality, or if Joel Piroe's first touch — a dipping shot from the edge of the penalty area — had dropped a foot or two lower.
But still, the Premier League got what it wanted here. The game may not have been great, but what about the headlines? Ruben Amorim, putting his foot down in the post-match press conference, declaring himself the manager, not the coach; his club putting their feet through his pants next morning, writing on his P45 that he's neither no more. That'll keep everyone busy until the next time. ⭑彡
New! Hoodies! Money off mugs!
Free members of Leedsista can get £1 off a Leedsista mug (as many times as they like. Paying members can get £2 off. If that's you, check your emails for the codes — if you wish that was you, you can join Leedsista by clicking here.