Bristol City 0-1 Leeds United: The task
It feels like faint praise but, compared to the teams we’re facing, Farke is doing a good job simply by ensuring Leeds can play his way without fucking it up every two minutes.
It feels like faint praise but, compared to the teams we’re facing, Farke is doing a good job simply by ensuring Leeds can play his way without fucking it up every two minutes.
Amid the grumbling and sourness about all the stuff that isn’t kicking a ball into a net and being happy, there was one player taking the chance the FA Cup offers to share something magical with the crowd.
People often wonder what a player has to do to earn a song at Leeds United, and at the moment it seems like the answer is: leave.
Alan Browne seemed to be strangling Ethan Ampadu on the floor. That probably shouldn’t have been happening, but I was delighted while nobody was stopping it.
The weirdness of Bamford’s goal was not only his breakdancing finish, humping off his haunches to spider-walk the ball in like Regan from The Exorcist being possessed by Gary Lineker, but that it was nearly finished for him, from three yards, by Junior Firpo.
Something to remember forever, to remember Pat by, to remember the kit by. To remember his hair by. It’s not every weekend you see a goal and know, instantly, that you’ll be seeing it again forever.
This was not so much Rutter unlocking Birmingham the way we longed for someone to unlock West Brom, more Bamford sticking a crowbar in the door and leaning, making the gaps United could play through.
Hire whoever you want to manage Leeds, they won’t find a miraculous creative force here who Farke somehow missed.
Illan Meslier has looked serious this season, barely cracking a smile until full-times, when with air-punching pleasure he seems almost relieved that another test is over.
After losing to Sunderland and drawing with Coventry, nobody was thrown under the bus. Nobody was dropped. While fans and pundits demanded changes, Farke stuck with the same eleven. And he kept on sticking until they won 4-0.