Leeds United 3-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers: Back home
This could have been an afternoon of angst, and the chatter about Wigan 2019 felt designed to summon just that, like repeating 'Gavin Massey' five times into a mirror. Instead the match was settled by an at-home demonstration of just how effective Leeds had been away on Monday.
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Eight years ago in another world that looked like Elland Road, Leeds United's then owner Andrea Radrizzani spent the closing stages of a routine 3-0 game with Wolverhampton Wanderers composing tweets. At full-time, as if to distract from how easily the Peacocks had been seen off, he hit send on his thread of complaints about all Wolves' unfair advantages. How could he, restricted by Financial Fair Play, compete with super-agent Jorge Mendes' influence at Molineux and build a team to overcome the likes of Helder Costa and Barry Douglas? He followed that up by writing a letter to anyone willing to look like they were in charge of English football, i.e. everybody and nobody. He wasn't necessarily wrong. We all cringed anyway.
There was time this Saturday, if anyone wanted, to sit down and write a book about all the unfairness in this cruel world while, first, Ladislav Krejčí was carried from the field after his run-in with Brenden 'The Butcher' Aaronson, then while the fourth official strapped on all the cop-robotics he required to take over from an ailing lino. Minds were wandering, thoughts were elsewhere, and the score wasn't yet the final, reassuring 3-0 it became in stoppage time. But it was hard to convert those long ruminatory minutes into words because there was nothing to complain about but no way to relax, either. I've been quite sure for a long time that Leeds United will avoid relegation this season. Now they very nearly have, I'm more nervous than I have ever been.
For now it's better to concentrate on the new gulf between Leeds United and Wolves, the one that lets Leeds beat them inside twenty minutes. It's true that the home crowd, during the remaining seventy minutes plus ten, felt like hostages to two teams' drab performances, but a lot of football is dictated by what rights you've earned in a game. The two early goals in twenty immediate minutes of attacking gave Leeds a licence to cool their heels once Wolves decided they were going to gesture towards the idea of not getting trounced. A superb save by Karl Darlow, battering a header off the line with a big swing of one strong arm, was a payment from United's funds of slush. It was worth letting Adam Armstrong through to lob Darlow just so an offside flag could get one back on our 2024 Play-off final foe.
And Leeds used those opening stages to bring more of the spirit of Old Trafford back to Beeston than anyone could have expected. Doing it there, once, might have been enough for one week, but Wolves were battered by the same frantic unrest until Leeds had the same domineering scoreline that took half an hour over there. This could have been a tight, cagey, nail-bitten afternoon of angst, and the amount of chatter about Wigan 2019 felt designed to summon just that, like repeating 'Gavin Massey' five times into a mirror. Instead the match was settled by an at-home demonstration of just how effective Leeds had been away on Monday.
It took twenty seconds for Noah Okafor to sprint clear of the defence and square just ahead of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, whose sliding contact forced Wolves' stand-in goalie, Daniel Bentley, into his first first-team save for almost a year. I'd been worrying about how Leeds might lift the Peacock Ground's combination of post-Old Trafford satisfaction and bottom-of-the-league nerves, and this was a scorifying, clarifying, cup-filling moment to start with, setting a new tone the Wanderers didn't want but Leeds fans rejoiced in. The players had not, after all, left it all in Old Trafford.
There wasn't a minute on the clock before Leeds were at it again, into Wolves' penalty area, crushing them in there like a fist around a shandy can, as desperate to score as if they were craving some stoppage time equaliser in an FA Cup semi-final. You know, like, for example. Wolves were not prepared for this: Leeds fans were not prepared for this. Nobody was prepared for the way Leeds took the lead.
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From Ao Tanaka's corner and Jaka Bijol's flick on, Bentley made an excellent close range save from Ethan Ampadu, who controlled and volleyed at him in the six yard box. That was a lot of good things already for Leeds and for the goalie, but they were all crossed out when the ball was scooped into the air and James Justin, crissing his legs and crossing his fingers, leapt on his superbike and volleyed over his head and between Bentley's knees. No shinner, no ankle tap, his connection was all boot. No angle, no sideways look, no bend or blemish, this was all back to goal all the time until all Justin's back hit the floor and all the ball hit all the net. It might be the best overhead kicked goal I've ever seen live, which is not what I went to Beeston looking for on Saturday.
Ninety seconds later it was 2-0. How do you get a great assist out of Brenden Aaronson? You send him clear down the right, and when he doesn't cross, you make sure he can't avoid the merry hell Calvert-Lewin wants to play with him about it. That's what led to the corner for Justin's goal. Take two, then, when Aaronson intercepted a loose pass down the same side again, got to the right side of an empty penalty area, then to avoid upsetting anybody he dispatched a low curving cross into the corridor of absolute dead-eyed certainty that Okafor as a simple statement of fact would finish at the back post. He did, first time, and while it didn't do much for Calvert-Lewin's desire for a goal, Okafor couldn't have looked more pleased with Brenden when he came over for the celebrations.
After that? We don't need to worry about after that. Wolves pulled their socks up, determined that if they were to be relegated this day, they were not to be embarrassed. That has been manager Rob Edwards' best hope for them since he took over, and it has worked — for many months they have been much less embarrassing than Tottenham. At the same time, Leeds rolled their holey socks down, and you couldn't really blame them after all the work they'd done all night on Monday, after the first twenty minutes here, after the hours they'd put in against West Ham two weeks ago to get to Wembley next weekend. Not to mention a trip to Bournemouth coming in between and a reputation for letting wins get away that, bad as they played for the rest of this match, Leeds never looked like living up to.
Instead of becoming dangerous the game got merely messy, messiest when the Medford Messi, fed up of being fouled, was also trampled. And sprang to his feet to shove the wrong guy over. I think so, anyway: I think Aaronson was going after the trampler, but he got the fouler, hence his profuse apologies despite his victim — Ladislav Krejčí — going down holding his head from a push in his back that seemed to sprain his neck. Look, I'm not a doctor. For a moment the match could have spilled over into a brawl but Ampadu emphasised his captain's pedigree by reminding all the crucial people not to risk suspension before Sunday. The irony of Aaronson missing a massive game through 'violent conduct' would have been too much.
This and the injured official were very distracting and added ten minutes to the time. Calvert-Lewin cleared something off the line, Darlow made his big save, and we were all reminded that defending well is a valid way to win a game. Wilf Gnonto added a more concentrated version of his Old Trafford meanderings and set Calvert-Lewin up for the foul that earned the penalty that, when he whacked it into the net, he and we hoped would erase the memory of all that happened between the second and third goals and send Leeds people home happy.
Not that this match, or this week, should be forgotten. Leeds, contrary to fears, did not Wiganise themselves. Instead of giving away a couple of late goals, they kept a clean sheet and scored a third. Monday was not only the first league win at Old Trafford since 1981, it was United's first win anywhere but Elland Road since they beat Wolves, 3-1, back in September. It was the first time they'd won games back-to-back since May, in another league in another time.
They won six in a row to seal the Championship last season and while I don't expect that to happen now, I am noticing that the same way Manor Solomon found his full fitness and best prominence at the end of that campaign, getting three goals and five assists in those six wins, Noah Okafor is finding his fitness and form. Ao Tanaka is having a late season resurgence and Jaka Bijol, nine months in, is reassuring us of a world beyond Joe Rodon. Leeds, far from falling apart again, are blossoming into spring again.
That is beginning to look like a feature of Daniel Farke's management of Leeds: he keeps us worrying, all season, about this or that problem, only to work it out in the final stretches and have the team doing all we've been looking for by the end, when it counts. Perhaps the original example was playing Georginio Rutter as a no.9 in front of Joel Piroe, against all advice, insisting that Rutter had to learn more of the art of no.10ness. Then, when he had learned some things, Farke switched them round. Rutter, later on Saturday evening, had Leeds fans all smiles again when he rollocked a shot into Tottenham's goal, equalising what Spurs' players and fans had celebrated like a perfect winner. Archie Gray had a go at putting Tottenham back ahead, which might have been something he could show to his little brother Harry, who was spotted in the away end at Old Trafford celebrating the goals that were pushing a relegation in big Arch's direction. But Archie's shot was saved. You can't win them all. Well, Tottenham can't. Leeds? It's becoming less of a problem. ⭑彡
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As goalkeeper, Nigel Martyn knew what this pre-match bluster meant. "If they think they can score four, Deportivo must have singled me out," he said.
(part two)
David Beckham went into hiding. Paul Ince locked himself away in the hotel. David Batty, meanwhile, was in the bar, watching a replay on television, cringing at Kevin Keegan confidently predicting he'd score.
If the Peacocks of 1950 could overcome Arsenal, they'd reach the FA Cup semi-final. And that could mean, it was reported, another trip to London, if the semi-finals were moved to Wembley.
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