Leeds United 2-0 Norwich City: Good taste in winning
At Elland Road, the Peacocks were giving the Canaries every chance to play fair. Well, apart from the scoring after thirty seconds thing, but in some ways that was a kindness.
Another 2-0 home win for Leeds United and, cross-checking manager Daniel Farke's nationality along the indexed columns of cliches, we could be calling this efficient. Instead, in the pop language of last year, I'm more inclined to call it tasteful, very demure.
By taking the lead after thirty seconds Leeds could have tempted themselves into the sort of first half demolition of Norwich City that their title rivals and next opponents, Burnley, were busy with in Devon. The travelling Turf Moormen led 5-0 at half-time, and at full-time, and that second half looks extraordinarily tedious by the way: after fifteen shots in the first half, nine on target, Burnley's second half was about 60 per cent possession, two shots that went wide, and not even a single corner (after five in the first half). Boring!
Those Clarets were also playing with the sort of advantage that, in our persecuted minds, never seems to fall to Leeds. True, when we beat Plymouth 3-0 at Elland Road they were hampered by Wayne Rooney's management, but they were disrupted against Burnley because their best player, Morgan Whittaker, didn't show up. Not in the metaphorical, Joel Piroe sense: his manager says Whittaker literally did not come to the ground on time to play in the match, despite being picked in the team. The background to this is transfer speculation, and a transfer to Burnley specifically, which begins to make the advantage feel less like luck and more like a dirty trick from up Scott Parker's blardigan sleeve. While Farke treads carefully around even mentioning the name of another club's player, never mind upsetting anybody by bidding for one, here we have Burnley weakening already weak opponents by unsettling their star. (The funniest timeline now, of course, would be Leeds hijacking the move and buying Whittaker for ourselves.)
Instead, at Elland Road, the Peacocks were giving the visiting Canaries every chance to play fair. Well, apart from the scoring after thirty seconds thing, but in some ways that was the kindest thing Leeds could do for Norwich. It was a great goal, worked down the right when Brenden Aaronson tussled for the ball and won, got it back from Jayden Bogle's backheel, and sent a pass down the line for Dan James. It was such a good ball James could clip it first time to the front post, where Manor Solomon was ordering Piroe out the way so he could finish himself, into the roof of the net, with proper aplomb.
Scoring straight from kick-off meant two things for the game. One, Leeds could relax a bit, and a feature of this season compared to last is that the team is getting better at scoring earlier and calming things down. Two, Norwich couldn't sit deep and absorb attacks all night if they wanted to get something from the game. They've received a lot of post-match credit for coming to Leeds and having a go, unlike the back sixes of teams like Rooney's Plymouth, but 1-0 down with 950 fans in their corner, what were they supposed to do? Make like Morgan Whittaker and call it a night before it even got going? Elland Road is so desperate for excitement this season that we're even clinging to faint signs of attacking from visiting teams, and maybe the answer is to play every game like this, Leeds taking a goal start and encouraging the other team to play, have a go, try their best.
Unfortunately for Norwich City, they can't play, not the way their manager Johannes Hoff Thorup wants them to. His side, depleted by injuries and suspensions, had clear orders to play out from the back, starting with short passing in their own penalty area until they could overload and break down the wings, and they just — couldn't. Leeds had a couple of options against this, either pressing them high, for which Aaronson's repaired legs were useful, or just letting them do their thing until a pass, inevitably, went to a white shirt. It was the second tactic that was giving Norwich their few attacks, but the Canaries were almost as startled as Leeds when their passing didn't go awry and they made it over halfway. They didn't do it very often.
There are parallels with Ange Postecoglou's insistence on Spurs being who he is despite being down to kids and reserves, which itself has things in common with Marcelo Bielsa insisting Leeds should play Arsenal, when games around the country were being called off for Covid and injuries, because Liam McCarron was still standing and that was enough to try playing like Argentina at a World Cup. Farke, I think, has opted for a wise softening in recent weeks, detectable in how Illan Meslier has been kicking longer the lower his confidence has got. No such flexibility for Norwich, though, and no respite for Shane Duffy and Callum Doyle as they pleaded, with puppy dog eyes, to be allowed just one hoof.
This persistence doesn't just come from Thorup, though, but from higher up at Carrow Road. And it seems to have something to do with the manager in the other dugout at Elland Road, our Daniel Farke, who got an ovation from the travelling fans after making sure their night was miserable. Norwich seem to have been living through sacker's remorse ever since letting Farke go when they were up against a second relegation from the Premier League, and replacing him with Dean Smith. Smith's style, both playing and personal, was a complete contrast to Farke's and many fans wanted him gone before the mid-season World Cup break of the following campaign. When he was sacked soon after the league's resumption, it was after Smith claimed the fans wanted him to fail. "I think a lot of them have been waiting for this period to happen, or wanting it to — I don't know," he said, and judging by his replacement, what they actually wanted was to rewind history and get Daniel Farke back. David Wagner was the nearest thing they could get — Farke had taken over from Wagner at Borussia Dortmund II in 2015 — but after watching his team dismantled by Farke's Leeds United in last season's play-offs, the Carrow honchos have flipped through the hipster rolodex once more. They found Johannes Hoff Thorup at Nordsjælland, bringing in him over to relive their glory days of having a young coach from Europe who looks cool in his tracksuit so that, if they squint a bit and half-hear the accent, they can carry on convincing themselves that Farke never went away.
Dean Smith was sacked in December 2022 with the team 5th because the club were worried about missing out on the play-offs. Under David Wagner, they finished 13th, then he was sacked at the end of last season for not getting to the play-off final. Right now Norwich are 12th, six points from 6th, and after their encounter with Farke's ghost at Elland Road it's not hard to imagine them checking the FBRef stats tables in search of another eerie coach-a-like from Europe. If it helps them, Darko Milanic is currently in the UAE Pro League and I'm sure he'd be willing to take a hair transplant to recapture his shoulder length glory days and give the Canaries the silhouette of what they're yearning for.
In the meantime the best Thorup could come up with was pleading for Ao Tanaka to get a second yellow just after half-time, and hoping Leeds wouldn't snap themselves out of their own slumber and score more. The Leeds players looked like they'd bored themselves by failing to add to their opener and, with Jayden Bogle doing some real out-and-out Bogling in attack, they picked up the tempo in the second half. The true difference maker was Junior Firpo and his left foot forward, taking over as substitute from Sam Byram and his left foot's urge to tap back and inside so his right can pass to Ampadu. Manor Solomon started having all the fun Dan James was getting with Bogle on the other side, and it was a Firpo underlap that created the second goal, well, nearly. He swapped some boring passes back and forth with Ampadu then turned over halfway, ran around two defenders, passed down the line to Solomon, and ran towards the six yard box. He lofted the return pass up for James, who headed down for Aaronson, who lifted the ball over the bar. Here's where inspiration struck. Norwich defender Kellen Fisher had a full moment of the Mesliers at Hull, keeping the ball in play with a header to Solomon. He crossed to the back post, just over Bogle's head and right down on to Dan James' foot, where the ball met with a steady kick across and into the net.
The lesson there, for Morgan Whittaker, is that you don't have to stay away to help your club's opponents — you can give them a hand on the pitch, too. I don't think we should sign Kellen Fisher, though, just give him a firm handshake of thanks for the pre-assist and best wishes for the rest of his season. That's the tasteful way to win. ⭑彡