Derby County 0-1 Leeds United: Rough, smooth, Ampadu
Sometimes Leeds can get trapped by their own smoothness. Ethan Ampadu's performance was the rough edge that let Derby think they were in a game — the wrong game.
Maybe Daniel Farke, for all his steadiness, likes a little more risk than he lets on to help his coffee and cake go down. You can't always have a firework of football, he says, and you can't be dancing on tables all the time. But you can push things to the edge, things like your luck, and look over the precipice just to see what's down there. Down there, at the year's end, are Sheffield United, Burnley and Sunderland, where we want them. Leeds United's second consecutive away win, at Derby County, ensured this state of affairs but didn't come without a touch of self-inflicted jeopardy.
Away form has been a big issue for Leeds, partly in the absence of many other issues to worry about at a time when football as a sport seems to need anger and complaint, to exist. And partly because it has been so oddly bad compared to Leeds United at home. As a result of this pressure Daniel Farke, presiding over 46 wins and 150 goals scored in his time as manager, does not enjoy unanimous support, and should not, perhaps, faff around too much when he finds a formula that works. After Boxing Day's win in Stoke released some of the tension about travelling too far from Beeston, the journey to Pride Park three days later brought tension back against a team Leeds beat with ease, at home, three weeks ago. It was a chance to compare, contrast, and maybe to judge and blame, unless Farke could manage it simply and simply win.
The simple thing to do, then, was to take what worked in Stoke from the West Midlands to the East. That was not Farke's idea of fun. Ao Tanaka replaced Joe Rothwell, maybe so Ao's mum and dad's Christmas trip to England wasn't wasted. Largie Ramazani replaced Manor Solomon, Wilf Gnonto replaced in-form Dan James and, before you could say this seems like rather a lot of changes Daniel, Mateo Joseph replaced two-goals-at-last-last-time Joel Piroe. An entirely new front three and a brand new midfield engine room, with Ethan Ampadu alongside Tanaka for the first time, with only maligned skier of shots Brenden Aaronson staying in place among the forwards to, for most of this game, sky some shots he should have scored with.
"The relationship (of players) who play close together is important," Farke had said after the win in Stoke, when he was asked about how well Jayden Bogle had played with Dan James — they'd created the second goal together. "Of course, you have to rotate during this busy period to keep things fresh but it's important players create relationships with each other," he continued. "When they (Bogle and James) play together and look comfortable in their game, they are looking pretty sharp." But most of the rest of his answer was actually about how flexibility is more important than partnership, as if he had his line-up for Derby in mind and was preparing his teamsheet's way.
"It won't be possible during this busy schedule in a 46 game season to play each and every minute with them both together on the pitch," he said. "My players have to be flexible, open and also capable of adapting to different situations when a player is not available or in their best shape or needs a break. They have done well so far but have to keep going and be ready when different players start."
Or, like, four different players start. And, like, when the four changes include breaking the partnerships down both wings, through the middle of the attack, in the centre of midfield. And, actually, Leeds did not adapt with due flexibility for a lot of the match in Derby. Pascal Struijk was passing behind Ramazani, not expecting him to run in off the wing. Aaronson's through balls might have had the right pace for James but were overhit for Gnonto. The way Leeds dominated the early stages should be highlighted — Derby completed thirty passes in the first fifteen minutes, Leeds 125 — but the key to beating Stoke was finding rhythm in possession, and that eluded Leeds in Derby. This audition by what has lately been the second choice front three might have been different had County's keeper Jacob Widell Zetterström not been in good form to make several good saves, or if Aaronson had obliged them by hitting a well made chance that Gnonto and Joseph put together for him on target instead of over the bar. But as the game wore on the front four, the eldest of whom just turned 24, were tapping out the jazz-time drumming of travelling disappointment of this season so far, syncopated and disrupted, a cacophony of misguided improvisation.
Cometh the hour, cometh the ten minute wait to get subs on, and cometh Joel Piroe, Manor Solomon and Dan James. Cometh a chance for James with his first touch, clear in the centre-forward position getting his shot saved after an early cross from Solomon. And then the steadiness that was how Leeds beat Stoke and a goal that Farke says belongs in his "poetry album" but that has, for its beauty, a sort of staid magnificence, like a big marble carving.
It's twenty passes, but more than that it's a full minute of possession around the Rams' penalty area, while their fans chanted with increasing desperation, 'Come on Derby!' It's frustrating before it's beautiful, because it looked like the players kept ignoring the possibilities of width in favour of awkward passing into central dead ends. Ampadu may have shared this view, hitting an emphatic pass to James who had been waiting on the touchline while his mates scrabbled about. Then the ball went to the other side, to Sam Byram, and what can Sam Byram create? Well, after turning the Derby defence around he can give the ball to Aaronson, who can go away from goal to Ampadu who can give it back to Byram. And Solomon can take it from him, swivel, his hips a signal to Aaronson to get running, his pass square to Piroe who is eyeing Aaronson's trajectory. A pause here for us to notice how, again, Piroe can combine vision with a pass from a deep-striker spot. But meanwhile the ball is on Aaronson's instep and he, without an angle to put it over, has put it down the side of the keeper and inside the goal. And that's just great.
Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman
Here's an old thing about how good Brenden Aaronson's finishing is and/or can be
It's not, however, unique to this match, not even for this season, or an away game. Even including the swift move upfield after Derby gave the ball away and an initial cross, one pass into the move, that they headed back to Leeds, this goal repeated the 22-passer scored in Swansea at the end of November. This is Leeds at their best whether people like it or not — a swift counter-attack almost creating a chance, averted by their opponents, then possession kept and the ball moved side to side and forward and back twenty times or more until, on the verge of frustration and Farkeball boredom, they create the space to score and move into it and do it.
That it took reuniting the recent best front four to score this goal shouldn't worry anyone unduly. That's what you get when players play consistently together and get used to each other's style and runs and begin to read each other's minds. Perhaps Joseph, Gnonto and Ramazani would be doing more stuff like this if they'd played together more often. Perhaps, given more time before the end of the season, they will. For now, it feels like an advance on last season that Leeds have a group of reliable, slightly older players they can either start with or bring on when the younger 'uns start to flounder. We can even include Pat Bamford, who came on for the last few minutes and took part in a short corner routine it looked like he'd rehearsed with Solomon, and almost scored when he conspired onto the end of Ampadu's quick free-kick.
Ampadu, anyway, could be more important than any of the players in front of him. Farke said a few weeks ago that, away from home, he thought Leeds needed more defensive nous than Tanaka and Rothwell could come up with together. There was a demonstration of that as Ampadu took authoritative measures in Stoke, and reinforcement at Derby where he got into some mixing with Marcus Harness and Ebou Adams in the midfield and got a yellow card — to the crowd's delight — for stopping lively substitute Corey Blackett-Taylor before he could get started. "It felt like a battle," Ampadu said afterwards, and while some theories say you shouldn't get drawn into scraps with teams you should be easily beating, there were benefits to Ampadu making himself the Derby fans' pantomime villain. Sometimes, especially away from home, Leeds can get trapped by their own smoothness, dominating the ball but unable to find a storyline for it. Ampadu's performance was the rough edge that gave the game some grit, some purpose, some meaning beyond passing the opponent into oblivion. He can enforce United's superiority while distracting from it, making Derby think they were in a game — the wrong game. That left the rest of Leeds United, first team and bench, to get on with the job of winning. ⭑彡