Swansea 3-4 Leeds United: Sawn in half

This game might be permission to stop searching for some grand unifying theory of Daniel Farke's Leeds United. Instead you can just watch the games happen and let them surprise you because if you allow them to they might.

Against Swansea, Leeds were weaving in and out of their lane. There were goals against them that they brought upon themselves. There were goals for them that bubbled from their habitual dominance. There was life in the game from playing against a team that also values possession, letting us accuse all those six-at-the-back bores elsewhere for dragging Leeds into the ennui of trying to batter a big parked bus. Then Leeds played so well at times in Swansea that the game was forced into that attack against defence mould anyway. There was a move that felt like everything bad about Farke's football until it flipped and became everything good, and it wasn't the first this season. There was a late equaliser everyone could see coming, and a late winner nobody could. Even that goal, scored in the 90th minute by Wilf Gnonto, was curiously undramatic: not a mad scramble like in some of the all-time comebacks, but a very good goal made quickly by very good football.

First about the flip. The goal that put Leeds 3-2 ahead had the Farkesque shape of a slowly turning mobile designed to put a child to sleep. Leeds, with the ball, went round and round and back and back and everywhere except near Swansea's goal, until the defenders were slumbering and Sam Byram was beyond them, not offside no matter what they say, taking down a high pass. He slid the ball across goal to Manor Solomon and he scored his second of the game. Including one cross that bounced back to Bogle, Leeds had played 22 passes before the ball went in the net and that's a statistic teams used to be proud of, back when counting passes was a put-down on people who thought long kicks and running were the best way to score. Things have changed a bit, and passing stats are now equated to boredom the way aimless long ball once was. There's one constant amid the criticism: long or short, it's aimlessness that fans don't like. Here, though, was a goal supporting my notion that Leeds look better if you assume every backward pass is a forward pass that hasn't got there yet. Jayden Bogle's blocked cross was the fifth pass in a move that started on the edge of United's penalty area — a quick counter-attack. When that didn't work Leeds kept the ball, took it back to Meslier to bring Swansea out, went to one side of the pitch then the other, and eventually popped the ball over the top into a gap that made a goal. This is how it's supposed to work: don't just look for space to appear, but move the ball around until you make some space in a place you can exploit. In this case, behind the full-back, with our full-back, with immediate and devastating effect.

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United's two goals before this were also sudden, sharp incisions, only without the big buildup, and with Dan James. For the first equaliser, Pascal Struijk won the ball high and his vision quickly spotted James' idea, as he sped into the space he could see but the opposing full-back, without eyes in the back of his head, had to turn to know anything about. Struijk's pass was ideal and Solomon soon caught on to the idea, running to the back post to finish James' low cross. The second equaliser was scored early in the second half when Leeds were dominating the game, but it came from Ao Tanaka taking the ball off a Swansea boot in midfield as if he was licking ice cream off a warm spoon, then sending it down the right wing ahead of James. Another low cross, and Joel Piroe didn't seem to mind not scoring against his former club as Ben Cabango slid an own goal before the ball got to him.

James had an excellent game by making effective use of his tools — his pace behind Swansea's high line, and the willing runners into the six yard box. He was less good when he wasn't patient enough for them to arrive, or imagined he could do without them altogether, sending some high crosses to some imaginary Kieffer Moore and high shots to a top corner, in his dreams against his former club, high in the sky. It will help him if he felt bad about those, as reminders to concentrate on what he's brilliant at. Just run in behind and cross low, Daniel, it works and it makes you look great.

Ao Tanaka was also superb but with tools we and maybe he didn't expect him to have. Since he got into United's team a countdown has begun until Ethan Ampadu can return in defensive midfield and Tanaka can move further forward and show what he's best at. But I don't know if I've ever seen Ampadu taking the ball off opponents as easily as this. At the start of the season Ampadu actually seemed to be playing an anxious sort of game, as if he was trying to combine the captaincy and a new season's desire for a faster tempo in every two-footed full-blooded tackle, every argument with the referee. Tanaka is playing the role with a bit more of what we might remember of David Batty, an undemonstrative thief of good ideas who will silently intercept the ball whether you're sending it to a teammate or trying to run with it close to your feet. That's mine, says Tanaka, and before you realise he's taken it, he's gone somewhere else and done something else with it. Trying to tackle him is like knocking on your neighbour to ask for your ball back and realising they've gone on holiday.

Maybe we should stick with our first idea that these skills will be better used further forward because Tanaka has some defensive imperfections. Those were compounded for the opening goal by the referee having a strange time and giving an uncertain free-kick against Tanaka after ignoring questionable tackles on Jayden Bogle. Matt Grimes put a cross behind United's high defending line and Tanaka didn't stop Harry Darling running in there to volley in. He had no fault for Swansea's second goal, in first half stoppage time, but when Pascal Struijk lost the ball up near half-way the forward brains of Tanaka and Joe Rothwell meant there was nobody goal-side to stop Ronald running forward and cutting square for Liam Cullen. After two goals for Wales, it was his luck when the ball diverted off Bogle's heel and in off the post, Illan Meslier guilty of failing to imagine his own luck would be out, not anticipating the deflection. Teams can, while Tanaka and Rothwell are together, have a stride through the Peacocks' middle that Ampadu, thundering, might not allow; his experience as a centre-back could be a help defending set-pieces.

That's the theory behind Josuha Guilavogui, but I think I prefer Leeds when Daniel Farke doesn't have defensive reinforcements on the bench to tempt him. He's big, he's fun, he gave a pre-match speech to the team about the importance of winning. But after Farke brought Guilavogui on with Max Wöber to secure a 3-2 win, Leeds dropped deep for five minutes and dropped to their knees with forty seconds left when a sweeping cross was met by Florian Bianchini ahead of Struijk, Rodon and Meslier. Maybe we should stick with attacking midfielders on the ball instead of defensive ones off it; maybe Farke manages like a striker who finishes better when he doesn't have time to think.

Leeds had time to save themselves, six minutes of stoppage time, but only needed one of them. It wasn't even long enough to build tension, but an immediate snap from despair to delight. Tanaka covered up a loose Swan pass and Wöber gave the ball to Wilf Gnonto, who had been on as a sub for a while without making much happen. He distracted a couple of defenders and made space for Tanaka to overlap him. He missed Brenden Aaronson with his pass inside but James turned Aaronson into a magician's misdirecting assistant, two ragdolls crossing over and one darting off with the ball. It was James, and Harry Darling was so confused about which half of Debbie McGee was which he was caught in his wonder playing Gnonto onside. James' through ball was instant, Gnonto's finish was a reminder that he once was and still might be a striker, calm and secure and definite.

Gnonto tried to look stern about all this while his teammates and the away end swung all limbs around. His expression looked like an attempt at subplot, after Manor Solomon took his starting place and scored twice: Wilf wanted to look unhappy about that, but happy about this. He's just not a serious person, though, and when a camera came up close he couldn't help smiling and kissing it and then he was all giggles with Guilavogui as if he'd forgotten what he was supposed to be miffed about. I try to picture him going on strike last season, sitting at a conference table to argue for his transfer, trying not to laugh.

There were 83 seconds between Swansea hitting net with ball and Leeds doing the same, outpacing Marcelo Bielsa's calculation that scoring a goal takes, on average, 95 seconds. Bielsa told the bemused youth team receiving that information that there could be 57 goals in a game, if they put their mind to it; at this higher rate, Farke's Leeds could be scoring 65. There's some thinking to be done about the way they came back against Swansea, as if Farke might forget all this careful build-up stuff and send them out with Guilavogui as their inspiration to score in the first 83 seconds and never stop. Two of the other goals actually were like that: the opener was basically a two pass move, Struijk to James to Solomon, the second goal took four after winning the ball. But then there's the 22 pass monster of backwards passing tedium that ended with the delight of the third goal and included, as its fifth pass, Bogle's attempt to cross for James, a counter attack hidden in a drawn out manoeuvre. Leeds' total of four goals is remarkable itself: Swansea had not conceded more than one in any game this season, and only ten times.

What's the conclusion from all this, about what Farke's football is and how we feel about it? Don't know. Maybe it's better to just watch the game while it's being played and see what sort of things happen. As for conclusions about the defending, wait and see about the games against Luton and Blackburn, I think. Leeds have their own excellent defensive record this season, that they've flung in the air once against Portsmouth and now against Swansea, maybe for the pure thrill of making things more fun. ⭑彡