Leeds United 2-0 Millwall: Back to the plan
One of the curiosities around a recent sense that Daniel Farke's team has become a bit more fun is how that has depended on Leeds playing a bit more worse. It's not a coincidence that this match with Millwall ended 2-0, the tenth 2-0 win of the season.
I couldn't decide what to expect from Leeds United's game with Millwall on Wednesday night. Too many variables, I think. The miserable defeat in Portsmouth. Burnley and Sheffield United losing their heads instead of taking advantage on Tuesday night. That I'd written, after we drew with West Bromwich Albion, about how beating Sunderland and Sheffield United might have been a 'Fool's Spring', a few days of blissful warmth followed, ten days later, by a last blast of winter: 'In football that's known as Millwall at home.' And ten days later here were Millwall, and here was a freezing March day in Leeds as if, instead of fans, Millwall had brought the sleet with them from Cold Blow Lane. If I can predict the weather, as apparently now I can, why couldn't I predict how this game would go? That's the fun of watching football, though, the not knowing and the watching and the finding out. Otherwise I could just be a Bayern Munich fan, looking up their winning scoreline on a Monday morning and not bothering to watch how they play. (Incidentally, both 1975 European Cup finalists have goal differences of +51 right now.)
I definitely didn't expect three goal of the season contenders from Leeds United against Millwall, but that's what we got. I think the first, objectively the worst, might be my favourite, and as an own goal it probably doesn't even count. But Leeds needed this. They'd played the first two-and-a-half minutes as if they still had sea legs from Pompey. Junior Firpo (twice), Pascal Struijk, Joe Rodon, Ao Tanaka, Joel Piroe and Joe Rodon again all gave the ball sleepily back to Millwall and let them build up attacking momentum and a free header in Illan Meslier's direction. The Peacocks had to snap themselves out of this, and by seizing on a loose touch from Caspar De Norre, they did.
Joe Rothwell won it, nabbing the ball off his toe wide left on halfway, then went storming off towards the Kop on one of his Maradona if you squint runs. A one-two with Piroe put him on course for the penalty area, with two white shirts to his left, two to his right, only one in Millwall green ahead of him, and under pressure from De Norre chasing he slipped it forward-left into Manor Solomon's path. His well-practiced cut-back was on its way to Brenden Aaronson and he would have scored, right? But Jake Cooper made sure, deflecting the ball behind and in off Lukas Jensen's misdirected dive. A carefully constructed wonder of aesthetics? No. And goals tend to be judged by their finishing touches and those came courtesy of the visitors. But it's hard to beat the thrill of a player winning a tackle and leading a charge of five upfield, there to score an important goal that calmed things down in Beeston and put Millwall back in the packing crate they'd been crowbarring out of.
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Millwall's game plan was possibly informed by Portsmouth's at the weekend, but also by their own league and cup wins over Leeds already. The concept is to deny Leeds time and space, to put players like Tanaka under the pressure he couldn't cope with on Sunday, to disrupt Rodon and Struijk's roles in patiently building up. In the first half Millwall did it quite well, and they were helped all night by the referee, Dean Whitestone. He didn't give a card in the match even though Joe Bryan, for example, could have taken one in the tenth minute for taking out Dan James. That meant he was free to take Dan James out again on the hour when he wasn't booked again and that meant he was free to, etc etc. James got himself caught up in a battle with Bryan, fouling him back, and with the ref, who took to wagging a patronising finger at James when he was walloped without earning a free-kick. When he did get a moment's freedom James held onto the ball too long, tried to beat too many players, sent what he imagined to be a screamer high over the bar, trying to prove a point; but bookings are a valid part of a winger's game — the ref is there with their cards to make sure the full-back can't keep just kicking you — that James couldn't make use of this night.
In that sense you can look at Millwall's plan, following Pompey's success, and call it Leeds' achilles heel and decide United have been worked out and that's now that for promotion, never mind. Except plans are not actions, and Millwall were not good enough to see their plan through for more than, well, three minutes. They went back to it after the goal but they hadn't the guile to make a goal for themselves or the energy to keep up with Leeds for the whole match, and a proper referee would have put a stop to their plans sooner. Instead we had Whitestone who, when George Honeyman was taking a deliberately slow route to the bench — stopping and chatting with his teammates about the injury that was forcing him off and whether they'd remembered to tape EastEnders, because the oncoming sub wasn't ready — went over to him by the byline to tell him off and actually slowed him down more. This interlude seemed to send Tanaka so loopy that he lost his head, booting an up 'n' under high into the south Leeds sky then slamming a long-range shot wide of the goal.
This was followed by the denial of our second goal of the season contender on the half hour. Japhet Tanganga, who had earlier been skinned by Aaronson as he ran through to shoot at the goalie, fouled Firpo on one of the rare occasions when Firpo could be found on the left (wing, not back, obviously). Six passes later, all of them involving Rothwell, James ran in from the right wing, pinged a pass to Piroe on the edge of the box, and he laid it outside to Aaronson. This was like opening a musical box with a ballerina inside as Aaronson backheeled through to Piroe again while pirouetting through a full rotation. It was wonderful skill, and he was onside, but the assistant raised a contrary flag as Piroe skipped around Cooper's sliding tackle and launched the ball into the near top corner.
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That was the first half, which Leeds never felt fully in control of while still pulling off two great goals, allowed to count or not, allowed by Millwall to play or not. The second half was a reversion to a reassuring form of type that didn't exactly keep Elland Road calm but that we are used to by now. One of the curiosities around a recent sense that Daniel Farke's team has become a bit more fun is how that has depended on Leeds playing a bit more worse. Things got more exciting against Sunderland and Sheffield United because the Peacocks were going behind early and coming back late. It's not a coincidence that this match with Millwall ended 2-0, the tenth 2-0 win of the season, after a second half that felt more like the Farkeball that was frustrating people in the autumn. It was Farke's Leeds' essence, spending 45 minutes trying to score and not managing to until the last ten minutes. They nearly managed it inside five minutes, Solomon getting into the area and smashing the ball off Millwall's bar. Aaronson nearly scored with a dipping volley, on a night when he looked like he was playing under protest at being left out of the USMNT squad, this on top of his spinning backheel to Piroe; admittedly his heavy touch also messed up a team move that put him through one-on-one, and at one point he controlled a bouncing ball by kicking it into this own face (hey, if it works), but that's just how he is. Rothwell made a chance to score by swerving into the penalty area but, trying to maintain his place in the team, he tried to break the net with a shot that went into the South Stand when, playing superbly as he was all night, he could have passed the ball in.
Rothwell was brilliant, with a deteriorating knee, while Farke left him and everyone out on the pitch beyond sixty, seventy, eighty minutes. The crowd wanted changes — the South Stand sang sarcastically when they came — but Farke wasn't seeing any need to change what was working. In the second half United's longest gap between shots was nine minutes, and their average was a shot every three minutes, twelve of fourteen efforts happening inside the penalty area. Millwall had one shot at goal. If something wasn't working right then Leeds were hiding it very well. Farke also seemed to have in mind what hadn't worked at Portsmouth — "I wanted to send the message, it just matters what happens today. We opted that the lads who were not perfect should show a reaction" — and that Gruev will probably start at QPR anyway for reasons of general fitness and away-day tactics, and that if Solomon and James look weary down there then Wilf Gnonto and Largie Ramazani will be even fresher replacements for not playing long here. In other words, while Leeds were making chance after chance against Millwall, Farke might as well let 'em cook.
And so onto goal of the season contender number three. Part of this is that any goal from the edge of the box is a treasure from this Leeds team; also that most things Ao Tanaka does are a joy. But by my count there were 25 passes before Firpo played the 26th, rolling the ball through the penalty area into Tanaka's unmarked path, with four Millwall players in front of him not even a factor in the clear patch of net he'd spotted long before. That's where he placed the ball, with powerful side-footed care, a sure strike into the top corner.
The crucial passage was when Aaronson took the ball over to the right, swapped passes with Bogle, then Rothwell, then Tanaka, and the movements and the way the back-and-forth balls mesmerised Millwall created an enormous space in midfield. Aaronson played the ball there for Rothwell to switch things over, for Solomon and Firpo to set up the chance from the left. On Tuesday night, Sheffield United had ended their game with Bristol City by conceding a 90th minute equaliser, barging around the referee and throwing a Bristol player on the floor in front of their lowest home crowd of the season, 4,600 missing from their gate against Leeds; Burnley ended their home draw with West Brom with a red card for one of their best defenders and another for their manager after CJ Egan-Riley kicked out at Will Lankshear on the final whistle. Under pressure Leeds 'Dirty Leeds' United, the next night, were ending their match by calmly manoeuvring Millwall and the ball so they could score a beautiful goal and make sure of three points and go back to the top of the Championship. ⭑彡