Luton Town 1-1 Leeds United: One down to third
Few footballers combine the skills of Wilf Gnonto with the body of John Pearson. You pays your money and takes your shortarses, and wager that you'll meet few enough shithouse teams and get enough points off them.
Leeds United have a team of tiny weaklings who struggle to compete in a hard, physical battle and were steamrollered on Saturday by the big strong lads of Luton Town with their off the ball outhousery. When a team is turning to Pat Bamford and Max Wöber as its hard men off the bench that team has problems in its nails department, and at Kenilworth Road the Leeds eleven were easily hammered into the long grass by Bedford vanfuls of lunk.
But this is also why Leeds United have scored 79 goals this season and Luton Town have scored 36. For all its effect, for all its volume, for all the wist they inspire about football of old, Luton's strong-arms have won ten games this season. The wisps of Leeds have won 23. While Hatters' captain and centre-forward Carlton Morris looked like every aggressive thing that Joel Piroe was not, he has started 31 games this season and scored five from open play. I'm not sure I'd prefer our Piroe more elbow-oriented, if that's the trade-off.
Leeds United's squad isn't built to scrap because they've taken a bet that scrapping is overrated. That assumption is tested on days like this when the tackle count is rocketing — 52 between the teams, compared to 34 last time with Swansea — and the pass maps are bleaching in the sun. The cliched assumption takes this 1-1 draw as a bellweather for United's lack of promotable heart, proof that the bpm this coming month will be more than these delicate flowers can take into the Premier League.
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That's not quite the case. Instead this game demonstrated what we knew: that Leeds find it hard to attack and score against big-built teams who aim to dominate through strength. This should not be news to anyone who is familiar with the vital statistics of Dan James, Manor Solomon, Wilf Gnonto, Ao Tanaka. The creative players were forced out of the game and the idea that all this team has lacked is the mythologised 'creative no.10' floundered at its first proof when Gnonto was being thrown on the floor. This game actually remade the case for Brenden Aaronson to play there because he, in his weird way, actually seems to like being bullied. Luton have conceded third most fouls in the Championship this season, so they don't care about kicking anyone. It's hard for little guys to attack when they're being kicked. Hence: few chances for little Leeds. But still: a beautiful equaliser from Dan James, the one time he had space and peace, collecting the ball from a corner and curling it into the corner of the net; and a certain winner, from James' crossing low and early, put over at the back post by Manor Solomon. Putting that under the bar would have been enough to flip all the fight chat over to how well Leeds did to withstand and overcome.
The withstanding part should be mentioned. Luton's other key characteristic, apart from fouling, is illustrated by them winning the second most aerial balls in the division out of the third most duels, 917 from 1,762. Leeds have won 581 out of 1,193, both numbers down around 20th, illuminating how aerial bombardment is not the Peacocks' game. And yet from all the wide free-kicks and long throws (Leeds were wise enough not to give them any corners) aimed into United's box on Saturday, Luton won two out of nine. Joe Rodon, Pascal Struijk, Jayden Bogle and, yes, praise him, Karl Darlow were dominant. Leeds headed clear from their own box nineteen times overall, winning a battle of strength against the top Hatters' tactic. Even Joel Piroe was winning headers back there.
United's stars misaligned along the floor for Luton's goal, though, and that's how the game wasn't won. After a bright start, including a Dan James header at goal (talk to me again about aerial strength!), a rebound saved off Junior Firpo, and a dipping shot by Solomon also well saved, Leeds were asserting their own game. Penning Town back, winning set pieces of their own, crossing and recrossing and making Luton's six yard box the main point of play. Then, on the quarter hour, Tanaka and Gnonto were isolated and picked off by the big lads. Tanaka squared to Gnonto on the edge of the area, and he was crumpled by Liam Walsh's tackle. Tanaka stopped Elijah Adebayo from breaking over halfway, but Adebayo is about twice his size and simply threw Tanaka to the ground while taking the ball back and carrying on. When the ball was overlapped to Jordan Clark there was an assumption in the middle that Rodon would stop him, but with his arms behind his back and his feet twisted Rodon let a cross go over to Isaiah Jones, unmarked at the back post, to put Luton ahead. It was only a moment — two small guys, two big tackles — but Luton, knowing it might be their only chance of the day, made sure they made the most of it.
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Leeds, after that, were as expected, breaking Luton down twice but only scoring once, and mindful of not being burned again. Daniel Farke was criticised afterwards for not letting Largie Ramazani loose on Luton, but he pointed out that in recent games Ramazani has been conspicuously weak in the tackle. He's not wrong: Swansea's late equaliser last time came from Ramazani losing out to old Joe Allen. It also came from Tanaka trying only a vague idea of a tackle to stop Allen's forward maraud, and he'd just repeated that for Luton's goal, so doubling down on short players who don't fancy a 50-50 was too risky to be the recipe for success. Instead the wing was entrusted to Isaac Schmidt, who did threaten the penalty area, and our long-lost Pat Bamford, who drew eye-catchingly different diagrams with his running between defenders and got in behind, once, for a decent shot.
The truth is that, in games like this, Leeds don't really have a recipe for success, but that comes from the truth that few teams can play every way. Clubs have to choose how to slant their squads, and Leeds have chosen tiny players who, through 40 out of 46 games in this season's Championship, have scored seventeen more goals than any other team in it. That they're only 7th for headed goals feels like a churlish complaint, because few footballers combine the skills of Wilf Gnonto with the body of John Pearson. You pays your money and takes your shortarses, and wager that you'll meet few enough shithouse teams and get enough points off them.
You also hope for a little more help from referees when you do meet them, help not forthcoming from Thomas Bramall on Saturday. It's easy to rolleyes when we complain about refereeing, but pertinent when ol' Laney here simply wasn't seeing half of what was going on around him. The ref is always relevant, but people prefer to dismiss that as an 'excuse', then hector you about how the proper reason for drawing 1-1 was not buying a different goalkeeper in 2022. That's an incoherent faith in the butterfly effect, combined with hindsight, which is not a wonderful thing because it traps you in the alluring idea of a perfect world being robbed from you, a world that football was never built to provide. As an actor in the ninety plus minutes on Saturday the referee was more relevant than any transfer policy and too relevant to the action by far.
But that was Kenilworth Road, and on Tuesday night it's Teeside. It will be more pressure, but it will be different — different opponent, different style, different ref. Middlesbrough, as one example of difference, have competed for the 2nd least aerial balls this season, and won the least. There was pressure on Leeds before playing Boro in December, before beating them 3-1. There's pressure all the time now because there are six games left, and the best/worst indicator of the weeks ahead was how the seven-to-go games went for the top three: one won, one lost, one drew. All three play on Tuesday night, so win-lose-draw again but in a different order? It's as likely as anything else, and likely to be the process five more times before May 3rd. Every game is different and between the top three we'll be living through eighteen of them, in all their varied kickabout collocations. ⭑彡