Nottingham Forest 0-2 Leeds United: Way Up High
Instead of foundations, Christiansen has made platforms from high-diving boards way up in the sky, and even if we topple off them now, we’ll do some lovely acrobatics on the way down. The feeling is, though, that Leeds United can go much higher still before anybody needs to think about falling.
This season we’ve seen surprising Leeds United, when they shook off a skittish preseason to take a commanding early lead against Bolton, and we’ve seen delightful Leeds United, in the Carabao Cup.
Grinding Leeds United showed up for the two home nil-alls against Preston and Fulham, followed by against-the-odds Leeds United for the trip to Sunderland. Although the odds shift caused by the prematch striker sale kerfuffle was balanced out by the presence of Agent Grayson.
Now we welcome efficient Leeds United, a team with a strong defence and attacking flair to spare, who sternly picked Nottingham Forest apart, and look like they’re here to stay.
Forest’s season so far has been that of most Championship promotion hopefuls, mixing wins over Millwall, Brentford and Middlesbrough with a league defeat to Barnsley and a Carabao-fuelled victory over Premier League Newcastle. That’s about as good as form gets in this division, and with goalscoring midfielder Andreas Bouchalakis joined by halfway-shy tackler Liam Bridcutt in the centre, they could justifiably claim to be one of the Championship’s topper sides.
It was inevitable then that within four minutes Samuel Saiz would be on the floor, shaking his head sadly and giving Bridcutt a pitying look, after Liam tried to show who was going to be boss in midfield. It wasn’t going to be Saiz — that’s not his game. But Bridcutt took a move to Nottingham Forest rather than try to dislodge Kalvin Phillips from Leeds United’s midfield, so it was no wonder he started by picking on the one guy even littler than himself, rather than the tigerish fella with the ‘fro looming over him in the centre circle.
My stat of choice here is tackles attempted, which for Bridcutt shows three, two at left-back and one at right-back; for Phillips it’s seven, in every area of the pitch between the two penalty areas, backed up by Eunan O’Kane with five in a similar pattern. And this in a game that Leeds controlled and won 2-0.
There are two reasons for that. First, Leeds United’s midfield was fighting harder for possession than Nottingham Forest’s; Bridcutt’s midfield partner didn’t try any tackles at all in his hour on the pitch, whereas Phillips and O’Kane were in hard everywhere. Second, Forest couldn’t get near enough to Saiz or Ezgjan Alioski to even try to get the ball.
They could get close enough to foul, and Alioski took some severe clatterings, fair and foul, from Armand Traore. One late tackle left Alioski on the floor and Traore accusing him of making a meal out of it, so Alioski got up, got the ball, and left Traore looking for his breakfast, inviting him to foul him again and then zooming past him up the touchline. There will be fewer more beautiful sights this season than Championship wannabe hardmen being embarrassed by our Macedonian Pop Idol contestant on the wing.
Speaking of beauty, at one point Pablo Hernandez tried to backheel a volley to Saiz, and if that had come off Leeds United should have been awarded the trophies for all three divisions of the Football League straight away, and the Carabao Cup to boot. It didn’t quite, and there was a lot of not-quiteness from Leeds going forward, Saiz and Alioski’s one-twos and long shots not quite finding their mark, meaning their performances were merely very good instead of bloody great.