Leeds United 2-1 Middlesbrough: Spectacle
All the complaints — the coach should be sacked, the Director of Football should be thrown down a well, all the new players should be returned with our statutory rights unaffected, Radrizzani should shove his PR stunts until he's bought proper players — faded away.
Kemar Roofe combining stepovers and strength, Pablo Hernandez playing a first time cross as accurate as a paper plane with a guidance system, Ezgjan Alioski cracking the ball into the roof of the net, and Leeds United's players piling into the front of the Kop. That's the kind of visual spectacle I like.
It's the kind of visual spectacle that is very difficult to achieve, as Leeds have been proving recently, which might be why they tried the easier option of cardboard and flags. Or perhaps Andrea Radrizzani knew that linesman would turn out a complete pillock, and wanted to arm the fans accordingly.
Thomas Christiansen doesn't seem like a man who does easy options. Being under pressure makes him "feel alive," he says, and his response to the legitimate bad luck that has plagued United's attempts to score — see Samu Saiz, hitting the post once more against Boro, after another brilliant composition he began on halfway — has been to work the players harder, to get them creating more chances, to overwhelm luck with so much endeavour that the fates can't prevent them all.
Leeds could have sacked Christiansen; that would have been another easy option. Instead they gave him a chance to prove he could work his way out of the doldrums. And he took that chance, not only by getting a dominant win over an expensive top six side, but by presenting a Leeds United team that was its old self again, its best self, playing like the bad form never existed.
Pontus Jansson, whose emotions can be read from his biceps, was the most visibly returned to health, which was bad news for the health of those around him. Marcus Tavernier crumbled beneath an aerial challenge, then heard Pontus yelling unkindnesses as he lay dying. If that's the price we have to pay to have our Pontus back, so be it. Jansson also got his first booking of the season, which came as a relief, then intervened to stop the South Stand's hail of flags towards the linesman, the sort of ambassadorial, leadership role that Jansson cherishes, but hasn't been earning lately.