Leeds United 3-0 Coventry City: Getting interesting
This is how it's done, just winning to nil over and over. It's something Leeds fans have wanted for a long time.
Leeds United are discovering in small, incremental ways what it might mean to have a team that does what it's supposed to. Opening day gave lots of fans the jitters, a modern update of 1989's 5-2 defeat to Newcastle while still delivering a point, but since then United's results have felt, faintly, unreal. A secure goalless draw at West Brom, a single goal disappointment at home to Burnley, but then every other game won by more than one to nil. 2-0, 2-0, 2-0 — it was lacking variety until Coventry came to Elland Road and Leeds did them 3-0. It's significant that, in the Championship, no team has created as much as 1.0 of an expected goal in a game against Leeds, not even Portsmouth while scoring three. In the 93rd minute against Coventry, when Illan Meslier flew across goal to palm away a shot from Brandon Thomas-Asante, he made the most of the moment just so he could leave a match feeling something, with a grass stain to treasure.
What all this feels like from a Leeds perspective has been the dominant question of the last few weeks, and it was part of this game again, how dominance can be dull. Leeds fans have, typically, been weirder about this than most fans, feeling dominance like a risk or a denial of pleasure. After a fast opening ten minutes against Coventry there were five minutes of creeping dissent before Wilf Gnonto opened the scoring. After Jayden Bogle made the score 2-0 just after half-time, though, the second half was more warmly received even while it didn't offer much excitement until Joel Piroe, a supersub again, made it 3-0 ten minutes from the end. Perhaps the third goal was how this performance moved from businesslike to actual business, and we needed the result to feel real for the dominance to feel worthwhile.
This is how it's done, though, just winning to nil over and over. It's something Leeds fans have wanted for a long time. Back in the 2010s, even after Marcelo Bielsa had taken charge, there were pleas for Leeds to just hire a manager who knows what he's doing, who knows how to get promoted, who will just deliver result after result and forget about the petty prettinesses of style. Neil Warnock, Sam Allardyce, Sean Dyche, Mick McCarthy, David Moyes, one of those, someone who will deliver. Arguably Leeds now have that, but with some modern passing patterns to watch during the boring bits instead of ye olde lumpen hoof, but it's taking some getting used to.
Everybody is getting used to this campaign and that's what is lifting Leeds, game by game, to a point where we might actually believe in them. The team has been through more changes since last season than maybe even Daniel Farke expected, and only now — Largie Ramazani's home debut right at the end of September — are those changes starting to cohere into something more interesting than sideways passing to victory. The team doesn't have a creative no.10 — again, perhaps Farke was expecting to have a creative no.10, even if only by keeping Georginio Rutter — but it is discovering a way to adapt, by posting two full-backs forward as wingers and letting three players behind Mateo Joseph work creative things out between them.
This could, in the long run, make Leeds harder to stop than giving the opposition one creator to mark. The first two goals were about movement, and how Coventry couldn't handle it. Gnonto got attention for the way he finished the opener but first he opened up the left side by running in off the wing and swapping places with Brenden Aaronson, who played Junior Firpo in out wide, and when Firpo squared to Gnonto he was in enough space on the edge of the area that now it could all be about the finish, a certain and true sidefoot shot into the top of the net.
The second goal came from more in-play shuffling, Gnonto dropping into his own half to push possession onto Bogle's overlap; as Aaronson ran wide left, Ramazani moved centrally to take a pass from Bogle then put him back through into the penalty area. Another sidefoot shot was in the net, off the goalie. Perhaps they've been practising those.
Leedsista
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A second Leeds United goal is pretty much a game-ender lately, especially against a side playing as badly as Coventry. I'm not sure what has happened to them, beyond the answers available from looking at their 'Players Out' columns from the last couple of summers, but if they carry on like this it will probably end with the directors who sold those players sacking the manager who stayed. Then again that manager is Mark Robins, whose FA Cup goal for Manchester United in 1990 kept Alex Ferguson in place for a decade of sickening success, so he deserves the P45 Ferguson should have had 34 years ago. Anyway, Robins' team looked remarkably unarsed when it's not even October yet, at one point allowing Ramazani to jump to control a ball on his chest, turn, and shoot unchallenged. It was good from Largie but he's only little and he shouldn't have been allowed to do it. Post-game analysis has to take into account that Coventry are bad now, but then, bad teams packing their defence are supposed to be Leeds United's big problem.
That chesting spinning shooting from Ramazani was during the first half, while Leeds were still pushing things, and I might have delayed Bogle's goal for more of this stuff. There was almost giddiness in the moments after the opening goal when Joseph was put through and the goalkeeper spilled the ball, getting up in time to save Ilia Gruev's shot from forty yards. Obviously this had to be calmed down but not by too much, and Leeds went about tempting fate in their usual way with ten first half shots and just the one goal. The shots, though, and the chances, were coming with more confidence, from players taking responsibility, running towards goal and letting fly.
Growing confidence seems to be doing great things for United's forwards, particularly Brenden Aaronson, who was willing on the ball from the very start. Aaronson can be fun to watch because it's possible to read his thought processes, like when he had the chance to control the ball in the opening few minutes but paused as his body caught up with his mind's devilish urge: go on, backheel the fucker. The fucker was indeed backheeled and Leeds went off attacking in a new direction. Game by game Aaronson is making more 'fuck it, it's the Champo' decisions and making himself more of a problem to other teams who, when deciding which forwards to mark before the game, are used to looking at him and thinking, 'fuck it, he's only seven stone wet'.
Mateo Joseph's confidence is building up in a different way, becoming bulk, as he seems to be shrugging off his cares whether he scores or not in favour of knocking defenders over and keeping the ball for Leeds. This feels like the right way of ensuring that, sooner rather than later, goals will be happening. His problem might be that Joel Piroe is not having any problems with goals. For the third one, the decider of the result and the happy mood, Gnonto was again working hard in his own half, breaking forward into space for Ao Tanaka's long pass into a whole north-east of empty grass. Lately just giving the ball to Piroe is enough for a goal so that's what Gnonto did, the striker getting sidefoot number three.
With Bogle having his best game and Firpo having another of his normally abnormal ones, there are signs that time is doing what it should to United's new look team, giving the players a chance to cohere and blossom. Farke's tactics take heat, but there's a point in all football teams when systems recede behind players and games are won or lost on their qualities, and how well they apply them. Gnonto, as his regular presence in this write-up might indicate, is starting to turn his second full season into the sort of second full season Rutter or Crysencio Summerville might be having if they'd stayed. Whether by coaching or coaxing, there's a new forward line coming out of its shell, with Gnonto gradually agreeing to put himself in charge.
Obviously, as the team starts to come together, so one of its linchpins is taken away. Ethan Ampadu's second thundering tackle in two home games damaged his knee a second time and this time there was no running it off. Leeds will go through to next year trying to do their best work without him in midfield, but then, they did their best work at the start of this year without him in midfield, so perhaps we can make the best of this enforced experiment. The question isn't really about replacing Ampadu but replacing Glen Kamara, with Ao Tanaka first in line on Saturday and Joe Rothwell or even Charlie Crew newly in the mix. Nothing can be done about Ampadu's knee now, so it's on to hoping neither Pascal Struijk or Joe Rodon have any problems. Although if the forward line keeps sharpening, some jeopardy at the back might keep fans in their seats through a good ol' fashioned 5-4 win or two, making the season a little more interesting. ⭑彡