Hull City 3-3 Leeds United: Somewhere, over the bar
Illan Meslier could have just left it all alone and let things take a quieter course. Goalkeeper? More like, let in a goal to keeper things interesting... er.
Illan Meslier could have just left it all alone and let things take a quieter course. Goalkeeper? More like, let in a goal to keeper things interesting... er.
Gazza? Maradona? Farke, mate, you would have loved Bill Fotherby. But we need to avoid letting the idea of a no.10 become a white whale, chasing an obsession while losing a season to the assumption that no no.10 equals no creativity.
When a penalty was awarded in the second half it was cheered but then feared, because Leeds had a chance to re-take the lead, but first someone would have to take the actual penalty. The best thing: hope. The worst thing: hope.
It's hard to see what Casilla contributed as captain. He did the coinflips for the kick-off and to choose the ends for penalties, I suppose. Apart from that, all his ascent to the captaincy did was attract the negative energy of articles like this one.
We looked at the league table as if seeing it properly for the first time. Leeds United in 1st place. Secure in the automatic promotion places by eleven points. I said last season it was going to be fascinating to see how Leeds messed it up and, well, I was right. This season?
Once I would have been yearning for the final whistle so I could quit morose observance of such a drab winter's scoreline, leaving the Hull fans in the away end curling their hands in the air like children, opening and closing their gobs like fish, singing about cats like fucking idiots.
Waiting for the ball to cross the line was agony, waiting for Christiansen to turn results around was agony, trudging to a half-empty football ground season after season has been agony. Ecstasy was always there somewhere, though.
When Chris Wood scores a goal like that and runs to the fans in the South Stand, we're the ones who are so desperate to be there to cheer him that we'll pay any price and suffer any indignity.