Nottingham Forest 0-1 Leeds United: Staching up

If this season's aim really is 14th but better with it, or better than 14th and better about it, the good news is that Leeds United didn't hang around with their opening day's opportunity. Clean sheet, a goal, three points, away win. Leeds only won two away last year so, already: a third of the way to better.

One of last season's away wins was the hardfought highlight of the later season, righting a wrong dating back to 1981. The City Ground is not Old Trafford but the enmity is there, and a dim record of just three wins since 1971. The Leeds' end's chants of 'United are back' were well placed, as was the non-sarcastic round of 'England's number one' after James Trafford pulled off the first flying save of his Leeds career. The Forest fans tried testing him with 'What a waste of money'; someone had songbooks out from the good old days.

So there was history to defy by winning here, but this was a good start to Leeds United's season in the modern world, too. For large parts of this game Nottingham Forest and Leeds were mirroring each other in very Premier League ways: two German coaches trying to dress younger than their 50ish years, matching up their £200m teams in 3-4-3 formations and pitching them long throw for long throw on a sunny day by the Trent.

Even the chances were mirror images. Trafford's save was midway through the first half, when Ola Aina sent a long throw into the box and Igor Jesus put a powerful header on target. Giving up this chance wasn't good, but Trafford flying through the air and palming the ball wide was a happy sight for his debut. 

And, midway through the second half, Matz Sels did the same thing, Noah Okafor crossing after a long throw was cleared, Tarik Muharemović getting his header on the same part of the target as Igor, Sels diving and palming away. 

That also looked a lot like Forest's good chance at the end of the first half, when a corner was cleared to James McAtee and his second cross was headed by Nikola Milenković, beating Trafford, onto the post.

Inseparable stuff. After the game, Forest's manager Oliver Glasner joked that he didn't need to speak to the press after Daniel Farke, as they'd just be saying the same things anyway.

Except Leeds made the nicest chance of the game, a better open play attack than anything Forest came up with, when after 25 minutes some one touch passing deep on the left opened up space for Brenden Aaronson to drive right and feed Jayden Bogle. His low cross would have been buried by Dominic Calvert-Lewin, but Harry Wilson got there first, and got there offside. 

This was towards the end of United's spell of opening domination, and if all this takes place again a few months in the future it might have a happier outcome. Harry Wilson is what we've been crying out for in this team, and we still are, because the team hasn't quite worked out what to do with him. I feel a little about Wilson the way people might feel about some long-lusted purchase of a sports car, ecstatic and relieved to have him on the driveway, but a bit confused that I can't now spend my entire life taking him for a spin. I have to work and live and eat in the old ordinary ways, all while looking out the window at him parked there, temptingly, and wondering what I'll actually do with him now he's mine. 

Calvert-Lewin seemed to be saying some variation of this to Wilson, at times, probably summarising it as 'Please, Harry, get out of my way'. Leeds, as a team, have to adjust to having Wilson's creative potential on their side, and learn how having it there changes what they have to do, what they can do. For now, the players sometimes seemed relieved when they could just give the ball to Aaronson, like last season, and let him keep them on familiar ground.

That was one of the changes Leeds were trying to get used to. The other was playing without Pascal Struijk. Muharemović looks like an excellent defender, cool and dominant and above all sensible: when Leeds were getting themselves into a little pickle in stoppage time, he strode across the penalty area and booted the ball into Row Z, very welcome. But nobody, for Daniel Farke's Leeds, had more to do with the ball than Struijk: last season he averaged 54 passes a game, more than anyone else. In his first game, slotting into the left side, Muharemović managed 37 and Jaka Bijol was in charge from the centre, with 56. 

Leeds were affected, too, by having right-footed James Justin at left-back, instead of injured Gabriel Gudmundsson. Instead of an outlet down the left he was a padel bat, sending the ball back and square whence it came, leaving Aaronson to scamper on the wing unfed. And leaving Nottingham right-back Aina, who started the game looking happier passing to yellow shirts and mortified when VAR checked his late foul on Justin for potential redness, to approach nearer and nearer to United's end.

Something similar was happening on the other side, as Forest took control of a midfield they'd been second best in for the first half-hour. James McAtee started dropping deeper, pursued by Anton Stach. That left more room upfield and got Forest's left centre-back Murillo marauding forward against Joe Rodon the way Joe Rodon was supposed to be marauding forward against him. Leeds were being trapped by their own attacking centre-half tactic, and because Jayden Bogle had to stay back to help, the big new plan of Rodoning the right wing was shelved.

It all settled down into a stalemated slog, United's attempts at expansion let down by Stach or Aaronson's inaccuracy, Forest's by Chris Wood coming on, getting a pass through the middle, and shooting well wide. Okafor replaced Wilson for the last half-hour and Leeds looked a little more comfortable doing what they know, and he tried one lovely floating dribble into the area that ended with more of a stumble than a cross. Well, first game of the season and all that.

A draw would have been fine but winning was brilliant. The game was settled in the last five minutes by more mirrors: two near-identical moments of brainlessness, but just one of big-braining. With three minutes of normal time left Milenković lazily bundled Stach over on the corner of Forest's area and it was a decisive mistake. So was the two-man wall's choice to split heads rather than bang them, which let Stach's choice of kicking — eyes on the back post, aim for the front — swerve the ball in off Sels' desperate hand. 

In the three minutes of stoppage time that followed Rodon gave Forest a similar chance with a similar lazy lunge on the edge of his own area, more central this time. Now it was Murillo and Morgan Gibbs-White's task to out-Stach Leeds and equalise. They spent most of the day's remaining time carefully lining up their own version of a big-brained set piece, including — according to Ampadu and Justin — moving the ball while the referee's back was turned. 

Even after the referee blew to take, they waited, as if boredom was a key part of their strategy, hoping it would hypnotise Leeds. Even if it did, banging the ball high over the goal only got cheers from the Leeds end, groans from Forest's fans, and a chance for Trafford to swing cheekily from his crossbar after pretending to dive. They'd spent all their stoppage time on this, and the game was up.

Stach, the hero, hadn't had a great game. Nobody did, on either side. But the cliché about the measure of a good team being one that wins without playing well can apply to players, too, and Stach got his reward for sticking to it out there, and Farke for sticking with him. He'd been considering subbing Stach to save the ankle he injured in pre-season, and maybe to restore some normality. "He’s a bit of a weird and crazy guy," said Farke, thrown by him co-promoting a burger with Meat:Stack in Leeds. It's not the first time Farke said this, though. 

"He's a bit weird and crazy guy and he gets lots of stick from myself," he said after Stach scored against Burnley back in May. "He can be a bit sleepy and cheeky and weird at times, but he delivered quality performance from the first day."

If this wasn't Anton's best day, no problem. He was steady enough not to let it matter in any big ways, and witty enough to make his dead-ball skill matter when he had the chance to push everything else about the day away. On free-kicks, Farke said, "I trust him with everything."

And that's how Leeds won away, against a team as good as themselves playing like themselves, but with Stach and a set-piece giving them an edge over their mirror: a cheering reverse of last season on the road, when the edges often ended up working against Leeds. The sooner United have more than two away wins, the sooner this season is already better than the last, and they're a third of the way to that target after ninety minutes. Last season's first away game ended 0-5. Promotion season? 0-0 at West Brom. The year before that was a 0-1 defeat to Birmingham, amid chaos. The only chaos this time was the good kind, a late goal in front of the away end scored by everyone's favourite, the weirdo. ⭑彡

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