Leeds United 0-1 Burnley: Good in a bad way
I don't think it's true that nothing has changed since last season, but it is true that it isn't working yet.
It's always dangerous to let a game of football into a beautiful day but at least there was enough time after this one to enjoy some of autumn's last attempts at sunshine before winter sets in, when losing to Burnley becomes existentially dreadful. There were reasons to be positive after this match at Elland Road, starting with being on the right side of the Pennines in daylight, ending before you remember the result of the football game.
This was another awkward, confusing and frustrating afternoon in the company of Leeds United Football Club and their manager Daniel Farke, plus Hollywood's Will Ferrell, brought along by Leeds' chair Paraag Marathe, and former 49er Frank Gore. Later that afternoon Jack White was seen at Anfield, while Monday night's big match between Wrexham and Birmingham City has been hyped up all weekend on social media since Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds recruited Eli Manning to 'call out' Tom Brady, as if this was some prearranged weekend for showing off your American mascots and winning the game on TikTok, if not on the pitch.
The stuff on the pitch is still mostly to do with football players although blame for all they do wrong still goes to their manager. Leeds against Burnley was settled by mistakes. In the first minute, Burnley's Luca Koleosho played a mistaken pass to United's Mateo Joseph, who ran through on goal and had to score but shot wide by mistake. Maybe he was confused by being made to play towards the Kop in the first half, not the South Stand; maybe he's a kid. Then, after a United corner was cleared, Manor Solomon slipped over by mistake and now Koleosho ran off with the ball; Jayden Bogle's mistake was not closing him down, Illan Meslier's was not diving at his shot. The ball was put in the net without any mistake and the goal was the result, 1-0.
There wasn't much room in either of these game-defining events for tactics, but they were the main point of discussion after the game. After risking it all when Wilf Gnonto had a chance to equalise saved by James Trafford, not to mention giving up a penalty claim when Solomon was brought down from behind, and spending most of their time on the back foot, Burnley opted to embrace bus-parking practice in the second half. Leeds dominated the game and Farke's tactics got the blame for United's failure to score through Burnley's double decker, as if tactics are a magic spell and he just had to read a different one from his big book. I'd be frustrated if I was Daniel Farke, being told — as Marcelo Bielsa used to point people out for saying — that the tactic that would have worked was the one he didn't try, particularly when in this game Leeds made more chances through their own creativity than Burnley, who only scored because Solomon, supposedly a cheat code in the Championship, turned into a stuck joypad. But then I'd be frustrated if I was me and Daniel Farke said he needed an old fashioned Gascoigne-Maradona no.10 to unlock the defence of second division Burnley, as if fans asking for a better tactical spell was unreasonable but him wanting a better magician is absolutely fine.
Leedsista
All this does, though, is lock us all into a gritty rat-king of endless frustration, so we should probably try to look for something that is objectively true. For example, that the international break of the last fortnight was an unhelpful post-transfer deadline illusion that, on the calendar, looks like a clear expanse of time to drill new signings into the team's style of play, but actually cleared Thorp Arch of everyone except the players not good enough to either play international football or be sold. Ao Tanaka looked good in his cameo appearance against Hull, but was straight off to play for Japan, so has spent about three days in total doing his new job. After this game Farke bemoaned, rightly, the lack of time coaches are given to work with their players within modern football's relentless calendar.
This, though, turns into an argument for balancing the summer's work the opposite way: instead of waiting hopefully for better players at the end of the transfer window with whom he won't have much time to work, Farke and co could have gone for signing known quantities as early as possible and spent the summer with them. As it is, Farke has a bunch of new and 'interesting' (his word) players now, but not much time between games to work out what to do with them. It's true that Leeds came close to promotion last season without really getting going until January, and that was after two Christmastime defeats as bad as this one, but it's a tough task convincing anyone that a slightly worse version of something that didn't work out last time is going to do the trick this time, even if it might turn out to be true.
In the meantime, it's hard to tell who is not helping who at Leeds United. It's hard to believe that, chasing an equaliser in the final few minutes, Farke sent Tanaka on to join Ilia Gruev and Joe Rothwell in the middle with instructions to crack out a few short passing triangles in their own half of the centre circle, so maybe that was just a confluence of their own tidy-possession instincts. I can't think of anything Farke can do about Sam Byram's right foot, but after taking over at right-back, Byram used it to take almost every pass he got back towards his own goal. This was a feature of little Sam's play last season and even though, here, he had a moan at Gruev about how passes were reaching him, it's noticeable how many forward motions are squashed by the inside of his right boot. This isn't tactics — Bogle doesn't do it, regardless of what else he doesn't do — this is one player's maddening habit.
Those were the late changes, after Ethan Ampadu's strange afternoon had been ended unusually early. The new captain, who hardly misses a minute for Farke, was taken out of the last 22 (+8). Before that, it had been Ampadu and the referee James Bell vying to wake Elland Road up. Bell had a bad afternoon, never looking in control of what was happening around him. In that he had something in common with Ampadu, who after Leeds went behind was trying to increase the tempo by example but by putting himself in a frenzy: in one sequence, he had a big shot that was blocked, put in a big tackle that got the crowd roaring, then made a big mistake that gave Burnley a chance to counter. After the penalty shout, when Burnley's Hannibal was booked for shoving Solomon around, Ampadu charged into a big tackle on him on the east line but only hurt himself. Hannibal strolled away as Ampadu crumpled on the floor, punching the grass. Ampadu has been hypercaptaining so far this season, over-busy, desperate to be involved on and off the ball, while last season's skipper, Pascal Struijk, has been an oasis of calm and sensible play.
Struijk is having a good season, and has even got me thinking well in retrospect of the dreary point Leeds earned away to West Brom, when he was player of the match. Half the debate about Farke and tactics accuses the manager of not having a plan B, which is maybe why going all the way to the Hawthorns for one shot on target looked so confusing at the time. We'd only wanted plan B but ended up all the way at Z to get a clean sheet. The mission to find a new tactic to unlock defences or deploy a mythical no.10 who can turn Leeds into Brazil '70 on their own overlooks that one glaring example of a different tactical plan — because we hated it. But maybe there was a lesson in it. Chucking on a front eight against Burnley didn't come up with any more goals than staying defensive did at West Brom, and got fewer league points. It feels like heresy to suggest this, especially at Elland Road, but on occasions when Burnley went charging into United's empty half I started wondering if Leeds could do with being a bit more boring, putting more grind on, in a good way.
Or perhaps it is all still just about time, time and patience that Farke has to cling to. The number of times Manor Solomon was either offside, or misconnecting with his teammates like a Premier League player not yet on the wavelength of his less talented new team, felt like a sign that this side isn't used to what it's becoming, yet. And even in losing, even in bashing its fists against the side of a parked bus, it was Leeds United who created chances that Burnley didn't (and didn't have to, to win).
Some of the Peacocks' play around the penalty area has sophistication: flicks through from Brenden Aaronson, well-weighted passes into the box from Gnonto. And some of it, particularly in the second half, was brave: Gnonto seeing a ring of five defenders ahead of him and charging into it with the ball, Largie Ramazani taking on and beating as many defenders as he can, trying to prise them open. This wasn't an afternoon when Leeds idled at the back with Meslier, but one when they camped around Burnley's box and kept the pressure on. The first half was creative enough — Gnonto should have scored, Solomon might have without being fouled. In the second half Burnley couldn't get out past United's high press and eventually had to stop trying. The tempo felt higher than similar games last season, and both Gruev and Ampadu were trying shots from distance — on the stats, Gruev has already taken as many shots this season, six, as he did all last season, while Ampadu's shots-per-90 is up from 0.81 last season (excluding games at centre-back) to 1.69 this season. I don't think it's true that nothing has changed since last season, but it is true that it isn't working yet.
In the macro all this still ends in frustration because football in the Championship is about results. But in the micro it can still thrill, because football can still be about skilful players using exquisite close control to beat two, three, four. This game was reminiscent, with adjustments, of the early months of last season, when Georgino Rutter, Crysencio Summerville and Wilf Gnonto were playing their first matches as first team regulars, trying to work out how to play before our eyes. It's probably best to enjoy that stuff when we see it, because players who figure it out will go to the Premier League with or without Leeds United. ⭑彡