Leeds United 2-0 Sheffield United: The game in the mind
Chris Wilder got into the wrong mind, about the wrong things, peering sideways into Farke's head when he should have been staring into the eyes of Joe Rothwell.
"We study intensely," said Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder after their game with Leeds United on Friday night. "We looked at a couple of games at the back end of last season. We looked at the Southampton game here and the play-off final as well, where they (Southampton) changed their formation and got a result. We felt that was the best way of going about it."
Reader: it wasn't.
Wilder also said he knew in advance that Leeds were "head and shoulders above everything we've already played" against, but that, "That's no mind games or trying to stick pressure on them."
Which is hard to believe when dealing with Chris Wilder, a manager so consumed by football's psychological battles that he once read much too much into a linesman munching on a post-match sandwich, whose mind appears to me like one of those 19th century spinning lantern shades that create the illusion of a figure moving round and round, and the figure is Patrick Bamford.
Studying videos of games from last season is, anyway, a sort of investigation of the mind of the manager, Daniel Farke, whose team Wilder was about to take on. It was the same reason why Marcelo Bielsa, when Nathan Jones took over at Stoke City just before they were playing Leeds, studied tapes of Jones' Luton Town team. But the evidence of Friday was that Wilder was intensely studying the wrong things because, while Leeds United have the same manager as last season they do not have the same players in their team, and what worked on them never looked like working on these. Wilder got into the wrong mind, about the wrong things, peering sideways into Farke's head when he should have been staring into the eyes of Joe Rothwell.
Wilder should have known this. When players make mistakes and give games away, he said, "It's quite easy and cheap to go 'formation, formation, formation'" — to blame his plan for the sins of the players. Which is true. But it also seems quite easy and cheap to look at how Southampton bested Leeds twice last season with a back five against United's front six, and think, 'formation, formation, formation', and yet that's what Wilder did. "They put six on the top line," he said about Leeds' attack. "(If) you have four (defenders) there's a big overload." So, he went with three central defenders and two wing-backs, to nullify the following players:
“You've got Gnonto and you’ve got the other boy off the other side," he said, showing off his intense study, "and you’ve got Jayden (Bogle) and Firpo. They're good operators and you've got the 10, Aaronson, and you've got Piroe as a nine making forward runs."
That's the front six Wilder wanted to sort out, and already it's not the front six Southampton were dealing with: there's 'The Other Boy', and Bogle attacking more than Archie Gray, Brenden Aaronson a completely different character to Georginio Rutter at 10 and Junior Firpo, a completely different Junior Firpo to the Junior Firpos we had before.
And behind them, where on last season's Saints days of frustration Glen Kamara and Ilia Gruev were too blunt to cut through, Leeds lined up against the Blades with Joe Rothwell and Ao Tanaka, and I imagine Wilder, feeling like he'd left no stone unturned or detail overlooked in his preparation for a front six, looked at how they started playing and said, "Oh." Because the new emphasis from United's new midfield meant that top line of six hardly noticed whether they were up against four, three, five or ten.
The formations might have been the same as Leeds' two defeats to Southampton from late last season but recordings of those games don't tell you about any of the important stuff for this game, which all resided between Rothwell and Tanaka's ears. First signs of their predilections at Sunderland were undone in the last few seconds, so at Elland Road on Friday they underlined that they do not play like the other guys played, and that's helping the players around them play well.
I don't think there's a great mystery to this, but that Rothwell and Tanaka are simply different players to Gruev, Ampadu or Kamara. I don't know whether they are definitively better, although the forwards are benefiting from what looks like more care on passes to them, more thought about what happens next. Bogle doesn't just get the ball from Rothwell, he's given it with a plan for its future care. When Tanaka swerves his body, puts himself to the other side of an opponent and pops a pass square, the movements are all in mind of putting the ball in front of Gnonto with the space in front of him, which makes Gnonto a more dangerous player. It's a small thing, but watching Joe Rodon's attempts to break a pass through for Bogle or Ramazani to watch out for a goal-kick was an eloquent argument for why it's better if he just gives the ball to Illan Meslier when he gets the chance. That's good safe stuff from Joe but a waste when you watch Ao. Then you have Rothwell, taking things up a notch by flicking the ball in the air on halfway and half-volleying back to his goalie. Safety football but with certainty and panache, which is what Rothwell and Tanaka are bringing in both directions.
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This might simply be because Rothwell and Tanaka have different pictures in their heads that Wilder, or even Farke, can't access. They've played with different players in different teams and see different things, and peripheral awareness of a teammate making a run triggers a different response because their old teammates ran their own routes. Leeds United's midfield is curving forward passes into the path of the striker now because it's something Tanaka is good at and likes doing, and no amount of analysing the 'formation, formation, formation' of even this season's games could prepare Sheffield United for that. Leeds United's players, though, have had some of this in training and in games, and they look like they could get used to it.
There's a story from Japan's victory over Spain in the 2022 World Cup, when Tanaka scored the winner from Kaoru Mitoma's almost-out cut-back. The two players were filmed embracing at full-time, and lip-readers got to work on the words between teammates who grew up as close friends throughout their schooldays, played in the same youth teams at Kawasaki Frontale, practiced one-on-one against each after training while they dreamed of becoming professional footballers. Translations vary slightly, but the gist was:
Tanaka: Ow, get off!
Mitoma: I knew you'd be there!
Tanaka: I knew you'd pass it!
Footballers know different things, and Sheffield United didn't know what to do about a midfield pair keeping Leeds United's front six working except, in the end, lose to them. It wasn't quite that simple, as Brenden Aaronson, another alteration from last year who was almost vindicating Marschball with his pressing energy at 10, kept condemning Marschball with some atrocious finishing. Largie Ramazani — Wilder's 'Other Boy' — had a good effort saved by Michael Cooper, who then tried to vindicate Meslier by showing that even one of the division's reputed best goalies can boot the ball to the other team and be beaten, unless he boots it to Aaronson and gets away with it. Anyway, dominance had not become goals by the hour mark, although the realisation of dominance had made United visibly more confident and that had made the crowd audibly more excited. But Wilder sent his players out early for the second half then made three changes that, as he gradually threw away his game plan, were giving the Blades hope. So far so different, in how Leeds looked, but they were risking a very old storyline on repeat.
Farke made changes with twenty minutes left but before they had any impact, in fact while Gnonto was still grumbling to Pat Bamford about being taken off as he trudged around the pitch, Leeds took the lead in a way that, reassuringly, didn't even depend on their open play performance. That Rothwell's cross was meant to be low and that Struijk was meant to bang it into the near top bin was confirmed by their faces the moment it happened, impish smiles each to the other about an idea that worked after a drought from corners. The north-west corner was now flooded and bombarded by players in celebration, and by Gnonto forgetting his troubles to get involved. The second goal, in the ninetieth minute, was made by Joel Piroe's well-timed and well-weighted through ball, and sub Mateo Joseph's well-strong defending of his position as he battled to stay in front of Sydie Peck and score. Illan Meslier ran from his goal to the north-west corner to celebrate that one, skipping across the top of the well he wanted to throw himself down into two Fridays ago.
This Friday was not that Friday and Sheffield United were not Southampton and Leeds now are not Leeds then, and the pattern that keeps repeating is now not dominating but not scoring but dominating and winning 2-0, four times. And Daniel Farke, even if he has been constrained into creativity by injuries to key players and still isn't sure, can't have the Leeds of last season because for now has no choice but playing Rothwell and Tanaka, unless he really believes in Charlie Crew. "It's not the perfect blend you dream for," Farke said of his enforced midfield pair, but it was more than Chris Wilder could imagine, and that was good for Leeds. They know things nobody else knows, the best mind games of all. ⭑彡