Norwich City 1-1 Leeds United: Caution to the wind
Performance: actually good. Vibes: manic. A point: it'll do. To look at Joe Rodon was to think, heck, let's just get out of here.
Joe Rodon always looks like someone who woke up wishing they could go back to bed, so it's not surprising that late nights are rough on him when autumn's drawing in. Late last September he was ejected from the pitch at Hull by an overzealous referee, as if being turfed out from under his duvet because his bus was coming. In Norwich this week, after three days of rain made everyone feel like spending the rest of forever in bed, he was hitting high anguish after a poke from the foot at the end of his long, trailing leg brought Josh Sargent down for a penalty. It was nobody's fault but Joe's so Joe had nobody to be mad at apart from the whole wide world.
Survivors of Leeds United's 2010s still fidget uncomfortably whenever midweek matches are mentioned. We've just passed the fourteenth anniversary of Leeds United 4-6 Preston North End. Daniel Farke's version takes its medicine away from Elland Road but the nighttime misery is still mounting up: last season there were miserable evenings at Rotherham, Sunderland and QPR when everyone from Leeds would have preferred an early night at home. This trip to Norwich, in the end, had more of early last season about it, before those miseries, more like that 0-0 draw at Hull at the end of September, the 1-0 defeat in Stoke a month after that.
Leeds might have beaten Hull away if Rodon hadn't been sent off; they might have beaten Stoke away if the midfield hadn't been so unfamiliar. Mash those two games together and add Stephen Martin, one prize prannock of a referee, and you have Leeds United's 1-1 draw at Carrow Road. The performance was actually overall good. But the vibes were overall manic. The point on the road, on a ground where Norwich haven't lost in the league since the start of last November — twelve wins, seven draws — had to be well taken in the end. To look at Joe Rodon was to think, heck, let's just get out of here.
The draw was still frustrating because Leeds United looked like they could be the ones to breach the Canary Castle walls, partly because the Canaries didn't follow the usual script for getting a result against Leeds. The penalty came early, on the quarter hour, and despite long lectures from Mateo Joseph and Brenden Aaronson about what Sargent might do with his spot kick, Illan Meslier couldn't keep out a shot that whizzed by his ankles like a ferret down a ginnel. The textbook says that teams leading Leeds should park a combine harvester in front of goal and take three easy points but Johannes Hoff Thorup, the 35-year-old Dane who has crossed the North Sea to manage within an easy ferry crossing of home, hasn't received that memo. The Peacocks were given plenty of room to attack, big spaces where they could run and roam, and as Norwich kept going for their own second goal this became the most entertaining game of Leeds' season so far.
Leeds had problems, though. First, everyone was playing like Joe Rodon looked. The calm controlled possession that Daniel Farke believes in was absent from his team. The attacking was too hectic to be called anything like good, but it was a fun change to watch Leeds scrambling about, overhitting passes, scanning on different wavelengths. Within this problem, though, was a fine solution named Wilf Gnonto, who is supposed to be sad about his best pals on the team leaving for the Premier League, but is playing more and more as if he's delighted to have his rivals for top dog out of the way. He's not the slightest bit worried about Leeds not signing a new playmaker this summer because he is him, the player that Brenden Aaronson and Largie Ramazani are making space for, the winger who will turn loose moves into direct runs for goal, the creator involved in setting up four chances while having four shots of his own. On the hour he became the no.10 who assisted the equaliser, and it was playmaking made simple: Pascal Struijk passed in a straight line out of defence, Gnonto turned 180 degrees and passed through for Ramazani's run, and he despatched a shot across and under Angus Gunn into the goal, where once upon last season that chance might have been lost amid six yard box tapping and feints.
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It's a great day to buy a book ⭑彡
United's other problem might have contributed to the game's overall chaos, in which case we could be in for a frantic few weeks. This was their first go this season without Ethan Ampadu in midfield after he was ruled out for the year with a knee injury. Ao Tanaka was stepping in, but after twenty minutes his new look alongside Ilia Gruev was over, as Gruev left the pitch with a knee injury of his own. Joe Rothwell is, at least, an experienced replacement, but he and Tanaka are newer than new to each other, and as Gruev showed last season at Stoke, quality is no guarantee of immediate success. That night late last October was Gruev's first start and was bad enough to assume it might have been his last. Neither Rothwell or Tanaka were bad at Norwich, but they were different, and that can be bad enough in the engine room of midfield.
This game suffered from loud echoes of the line-up shuffling that went into last year's midweek defeat to Stoke as the team turned into something we didn't want to see. The second choice midfield kept things moving but momentum couldn't withstand Farke's fun-sucking substitutions. Joseph, Ramazani and Gnonto came off; Pat Bamford, Joel Piroe and Joe Gelhardt came on, and this journey to the edges of the senior squad took the glee out of United's game. Sam Byram replaced Junior Firpo, too, and the intent shifted from chasing the win to taking the point.
Farke, afterwards, had a point about this. Leeds have three games this week, uncomfortably scheduled for Saturday-Tuesday-Friday, and with injuries already hampering the team they had to be careful in sodden, sapping conditions. From Farke's point of view, Ramazani is still developing match fitness, and he risked leaving him on the pitch for ten minutes longer than planned in hopes of a winner. Gnonto, on a yellow card, was tiring and no longer tracking back properly — he could have conjured up a winner, but he could have been the root of conceding, too.
From the stands, it looked like Farke was being unnecessarily risk-averse; from the bench, Farke felt he'd already taken more risks than he planned and it was better to take the draw, as good as anyone's got from Carrow Road in ten months. To give him the benefit of another's wisdom, Howard Wilkinson used to describe management as the elimination of chance, of keeping as much of a game as possible away from the threads of fate. After Leeds equalised on the hour, Farke could have shut the game down there and then. He let himself be tempted into another fifteen minutes of risking Ramazani and Gnonto's fitness, with two other wingers already injured and another big away match coming on Friday, but beyond that, to him, lay crazy.
Given the game had been menacing all night, had claimed Gruev's knee and distressed Joe Rodon, it was time to say a point is a point is a point. A sigh of relief for Farke, a fist of frustration for fans, and when Friday night comes, we'll together be looking for caution's pay-off in Sunderland. ⭑彡