Leeds United 0-3 Middlesbrough: Invitation to Limbo

That was only the first round of the Carabao Cup, but that was not good enough. So one question now is, what was that, and how relevant is it for what we actually want to achieve this season, which was not winning the Carabao Cup?

Daniel Farke has taken responsibility for that part, at least. "I'm responsible that we won't win the Carabao Cup this season," he said after making eight changes and losing 3-0 to Middlesbrough. That could have made this match an open and shut case. Football fans always want someone to blame, so thank you Daniel for making this one easy.

On the full-time whistle, the amount of anger in the ground and online felt a smidge disproportionate, and I was wondering why there was so much of it, and thinking about things like how Manchester City have turned the Premier League into a competition where it feels like one defeat is catastrophic, and that grim dread is dripping down the divisions; and how the whole ninety-points-not-enough thing last season proved that, actually, one defeat can be catastrophic. About how a sport of fine margins is compressing them even further until there is barely a second of even a first round Carabao Cup game that doesn't matter too much, hardly a fluffed pass or misdirected throw-in that isn't drenched with implications for the future course of history. There was a moment in this game, when Leeds were losing 3-0, when Joe Rothwell swerved in midfield and passed backwards to change the angle of attack and the crowd roared at him as if he'd booted in an own goal for four. I'd arrived thinking hey, maybe we can all relax our way through a summer evening's play in the Carabao Cup. Or maybe we can not.

And maybe we didn't know the half of it and were right to be angry and didn't even know how much. Because while everyone had paid to see the game, nobody was given the information beforehand that was animating the drama and would have made the match look like it meant what it actually meant. We spent ninety minutes (plus eight, cheers ref) interpreting a game of football, but what we were really watching was a development of the bigger plot as written by United's previous owners, the current owners, David Ornstein and Brighton and Bastard Hove.

I haven't felt such an urge for inquest into who knew what and when since we found out that Jermaine Beckford scored his iconic goal at Old Trafford in 2010 after putting in a transfer request. Beckford had just made himself an immortal hero, but within a week the footage was being reanalysed, his celebrations being reinterpreted, his facial expressions newly scrutinised for evidence of the money-grabbing turncoat he was now suspected of being showing through, even as he delivered one of the few great Leeds moments of the 21st century.

Leeds United versus Middlesbrough was all a front for similar background dramatics, a night offering better value for money if we'd bought tickets for the board's transatlantic Zoom calls instead. With a midnight deadline on a release clause that the fans didn't know was lurking in Georginio Rutter's contract, Brighton chose to meet the £40m asking price and let Leeds make a night of it. Leeds United had no choice but to accept the bid. The only decision now was Georgi's, and he chose to take his place on the bench, to come off it and try to save Leeds from a two goal deficit that quickly became three, to hit the post - okay, that wasn't exactly a choice - and to disappear at the end without any fuss. In so far as Rutter seems like a player who likes a fuss, and given he could have opted out of all of this to protect a Brighton-bound body, what we had after the news of Brighton's bid broke was a night that suggested Rutter might ignore them and stay. What we also had, though, was a match that didn't give him - or the fans - any reasons to believe in what might happen here if he does, a night that could send even an emotionally demonstrative person like Georgi into introspection. Maybe being on the pitch at Elland Road, even in a 3-0 defeat, even if it might be the last time, might have been the fun part. Coming off at the end, going down the tunnel, slowly getting changed, and going to meet his agents and family to discuss contracts and negotiations and the next phase of his out of control but lucrative life must have felt like waking up from the dream of being a footballer and being dragged down into the reality of being a footballer. Maybe, even with the risks, playing was always preferable.

It would have been preferable if Leeds United had played much better. I should say some things about the game but, sifting through, what about it might even matter? Max Wöber was diabolical, thoughtless on the ball, almost letting in a first half goal when he fell for a turn in the box so telegraphed it could have been sent by Samuel Morse. But if he just forgets the whole charade of wanting to be here and leaves that won't matter beyond the end of the month, unless he comes back to go through it all again next summer. Joe Gelhardt, in a rare start, looked bright and determined and perhaps - knowing what we know now - like he wants Rutter's place in the starting eleven. At the very least he still wants to be a footballer, if not here then elsewhere, and that desperation was a tangible positive in his play. Based on this game, we need to reverse that entire sentence for Pat Bamford, whose most lively involvement of the evening was chatting to Luke Ayling during a break of play. The last kick of the game went to Bamford, a wild shot somewhere up towards the back of the Kop, and it looked like the effort of someone done with all this. In goal, Karl Darlow did his annual work for the Make Illan Meslier Look Good Again Foundation. In front of him, the imposter we bought instead of the Real Joe Rodon was a bystander for Boro's first even as Anfernee Dijksteel waltzed right by him, and went running out of the way of the third, following his marker's run behind Pascal Struijk and leaving the centre to Middlesbrough. None of this would be a problem if only he was Max Wöber, but he's supposed to be Joe Rodon. In midfield we don't know what Joe Rothwell is yet, so I'm still hoping for something other than a more expressive version of Glen Kamara, passing backwards but with a bit of balletic gesturing first.

It should be recorded that Leeds were the better team in the first half, secure enough but for an odd spell when, after Junior Firpo swapped full-back jobs with Jayden Bogle at the weekend, he went and did it with Sam Byram this time, sending the centre of the pitch between them into uncertainty. It happened around the same part of the game, too, although again after defending a set-piece to give it some plausible deniability, but amid the criticisms that have been coming Daniel Farke's way since the end of last season he needs better innovations than look, woo, we're swapping over the full-backs. Having recorded the decent first half, though, we have to mention that Middlesbrough still made three good chances within it, and scored three goals at the start of the second half simply by deciding not to let Leeds be the better team anymore. Boro took control after half-time at will. It should not be that easy for a visiting team to take charge at Elland Road.

But hey, every visitor to Elland Road seems to be having it pretty easy right now. Clubs are just cruising into Beeston, with easy access from the motorways, taking some points or maybe a player they fancy, and toddling off again. There have been no such rewards for the home crowd's traipsing, though. It seems like Leeds United's guests know things that Leeds United's fans do not; the people who got on the motorway after the third goal, before Rutter whacked a shot off the post, weren't to know they might be missing his last meaningful act in a Leeds shirt. But then, Rutter might have been wondering too. What's the mental equation there? 'If this goes in, I stay...'

Goals are decisive, results are decisive, getting knocked out of the Carabao Cup is decisive, we know what these things are and what they mean and how they work. But Leeds United are contriving to make every certain thing mean nothing compared to the things we don't know and can't be sure of. A sure-fire promotion campaign? Maybe - it's not impossible - the season is not a week old. But right now Elland Road is an invitation to limbo, and not the cool fun kind where you dance under a pole; the rubbish kind, where you go to a game but nothing that you see is actually what is going on. ⭑彡