Leeds United 1-3 Manchester City: Protagonism
Here were signs of the more careful, pragmatic Leeds that Marsch was promising. Leeds still conceded three, but this was Manchester City. The three conceded to Bournemouth and Fulham, the four to Spurs, the five at Brentford, those have been the problem.
There was something diabolical about Kevin De Bruyne as he moved over halfway to create Manchester City’s opening goal. For 45 minutes Leeds United had been compact, tight, as difficult as they could be to play through, but in first half stoppage time they’d seen a gap and decided to attack it. When that fizzled inevitably in favour of the red and black shirts, De Bruyne looped the loop into space out wide, and as the ball went to him, so did the television director’s camera, broadcasting the moment when De Bruyne, the ball rolling in his feet, scanned the empty field ahead of him. He almost smiled, indistinguishable from a frown, like a devil. He knew his team could score now. I knew they would score now. Everyone knew that, for Manchester City against Leeds, scoring would be winning. A handful of well-designed passes later and Rodri had the ball in the net. The last kick of the half decided the game, and De Bruyne could relax.
Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland, both hyper-wound by their missed chances in the first half, relaxed even more when the second half began with dopey passing from Liam Cooper to Robin Koch on half-way, letting Grealish steal, escape, and set up Haaland to beat Illan Meslier. If the game hadn’t been done a second before half-time, it was done six minutes after. A moment of misplaced belief, thinking they could take the lead, undid Leeds for the first. A moment of misplaced idiocy undid them for the second.
Arguably Manchester City made more mistakes in this game than Leeds United. Haaland had four chances, İlkay Gündoğan had two, Riyad Mahrez had one, Grealish had five that he missed with increasing absurdity, all in the first half. Not putting any of those away counts as a mistake on the level Manchester play, as does John Stones almost sending United’s Wilf Gnonto through late in the game, and conceding — Leeds-like — to Pascal Struijk, when City couldn’t defend against Sam Greenwood’s pinpoint corner. The Peacocks’ errors were comparatively few, but cost them much more. This is what it means to be the protagonist in a match. City, with 69% of possession, had 26 shots, a volume that almost guarantees a return however many they miss or concede. I think Meslier, in Leeds’ goal, had a better night than unstoppable striker Haaland, making two big saves from him alone. Haaland still won player of the match, as his two goals took him to twenty in fourteen Premier League games.
His second made it 3-0 with 25 minutes to go, Manchester profiting again from spying Leeds unbalanced upfield, but proceeding more patiently this time. They had no need to rush, able to keep Leeds see-sawing out of control as they moved upfield, Haaland selling the defence by one-twoing with Grealish to give him room to score. There were 32 seconds between Greenwood hitting a free-kick into the red and black wall and Haaland hitting the net, stretching the definition of transition, but it was made the same way as the first, by De Bruyne motoring upfield with sin on his mind.
Leeds had been preparing Luke Ayling and Mateusz Klich and brought them on anyway to end the game by having a stronger say: Joe Gelhardt, a later substitute, almost added to Struijk’s header by brushing Greenwood’s low cross just past the post. Greenwood dipped another free-kick at Ederson’s goal, Gnonto kept dribbling towards it again and again. It never felt like enough. Games tend to dwindle once Manchester City lead by three. Playing matches against them might be the least interesting thing about the Citizens.