Chelsea 1-0 Leeds United: The fix
It might make for some grim football, but Leeds look grimly determined to stay in games, less willing to throw them away. And yet, they do.
It might make for some grim football, but Leeds look grimly determined to stay in games, less willing to throw them away. And yet, they do.
The logic is that variety is the spice of life, and what would be the point of an array of identical strikers? But Leeds would be really blessed if all their forward options had one thing in common: they could score lots of goals.
It was like watching one of those movies where you see things from the ghost's point of view, waving their arms and passing their hands through people who don't know that they're there.
Just about the only player I saw really standing up to the needs of the occasion was Junior Firpo, who seems to finally have the conditions he needs to shine for Leeds: a team playing badly around him.
After torrid months since August trying to decipher what Jesse Marsch thought this team could be, since he's been gone we have found out that it can be a good one.
A key phrase of Angus Kinnear's programme notes, introducing Jesse Marsch last year, said Marsch was coming earlier than planned as part of 'the acceleration of the coaching transition', post-Bielsa. Later than planned, Leeds might have finally made a start.
Eleven months in, his confident delivery can't mask the substance of what even Jesse Marsch is saying about his own work: this isn't going very well.
No Leeds fan could enjoy this game unless they had binned the Twitter app from their phone and refused to speak to anyone who hadn’t done the same. (Not an entirely bad idea.)
What “complete performances” like this draw with Brentford and the defeat to Villa actually reveal is the futility at the heart of Marsch’s project. Yes, Leeds are executing his ideas better, but they’re getting better at doing something that will never be good enough.
There's a power in the message of a goal like this, the telegraphic thrum of the wires taking it round the world or the different background tone in a pub where people are discussing it. It lets you know, by vibration alone, that something special has gone on.