Some football, before it's all forgotten

The good news for Illan Meslier is that something always comes along to displace the last unforgettable moment, shoving it into long grass where it's not quite forgotten but where it requires someone more obsessive than most to find it again.

It'll haunt him but it's up to him for how long. It does and doesn't help that Leeds United's next game will be on Sky Sports again, that the cameras and commentators will scrutinise him in 4K before kick-off; if he can get through the match against Sheffield United without giving anyone a reason to replay his mistake from the Sunderland game he'll have taken the first steps towards burying the footage. Beyond Leeds United fans, and beyond Sky Sports' melodramatic desperation, it was only an early season game in the EFL Championship and a good place to bury bad news. The clips will live on in banter compilations on TikTok and YouTube, but torn from context the spidery giant with his head in his hands will become, to the viewers, just some generic goalie to laugh at. Maybe one day he'll get pointed out — did you know he's the same guy who...? — but Meslier would have to have done something to make him worth pointing out, probably something good. So good, for future him. The best part of the worst of football is that we can laugh about it, one day.

Another factor on Meslier's side worked against Joel Piroe on Friday night: there are always more events. There was a sped-up instance of this for Sunderland's opener, which Meslier did brilliantly to stop until the ball went in anyway and that brilliance was forgotten long before the 96th minute. Piroe's goal was ready to become my dominant memory of the match, until Meslier (etc), and improbable as it feels something will soon come along to replace that moment in collected minds. What are you thinking about more these days, Pat Bamford's supposedly career-defining volley against Peterborough in January, or his confession on a podcast this week that he'd wanted to take his career to new pastures before that ever happened? Fans will always be reassessing and reshuffling their chosen memories for as long as there is more football, and I guess more podcasts.

In the meantime, that goal by Joel Piroe. This was a lot while not looking like much. Wilf Gnonto's cross was perfect but I'd give a lot of credit even for that part to Piroe, whose intelligence burst out and possibly marginally offside as soon as Jobe Bellingham deflected the ball to Gnonto, running irresistibly off Chris Mepham's shoulder. In his mind Piroe was heading that ball in the net before Gnonto even knew he was going to be crossing it, and it wasn't long after the ball left Gnonto's boot that the rest of us, sure in our striker, caught up with his idea. So much confidence in a centre-forward doing this much centre-forwarding has been rare at Leeds but it's well-placed in Piroe. Anthony Patterson avoided any Meslierism by not even trying to save the header, just standing and shrugging, a beaten man. Strikers scoring with headers has been rare, too, and this was the first goal of its kind United have scored since the play-off against Norwich when Gnonto etc and Piroe etc, and that one was all Joel too, running through the middle when Wilf got the ball, pointing at the back post, letting us enjoy the cross more from knowing it was definitely getting headed in.