Leeds United 0-4 Tottenham: Let down
Marcelo Bielsa, of course, will never give up, and that's why they say he's going to lose his job.
Marcelo Bielsa, of course, will never give up, and that's why they say he's going to lose his job.
We didn't get a flood of second half goals, but we did get the Strid at full power, Raphinha scoring with the roar of a river through a gorge. His footwork opened West Brom's defence like a vista over moors; the noise of the ball in the net was as pure and monstrous as a kestrel snatching a rat.
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.
Leeds and West Brom are on the same side of the fighting against the teams below. As such you could take this match as pure sport, a game to decide nothing except who has the better team.
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?
Luke Ayling dragged Klich to the ground for a celebratory pile-on as if he's been missing those long-range Klichers as much as Mateusz. They should enjoy them, too.
We've been preoccupied with sexy this season. And a point in Sheffield ain't that.
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.
Bielsa doesn't bring happiness. Bielsa brings principles and duty, and faith that the effort of adhering to them will result in happiness in the end, and the understanding that it probably won't.
While Reach's speculative strike had the satisfying audacity of a stunt, Klich made something artful, deliberate and beautiful. It's the difference between watching two magpies have a fight in your garden, or watching a nature documentary narrated by David Attenborough.