Wolves 2-4 Leeds United: Good time for a good time

Leeds United wanted (needed) a win and here was one, away from home to boot, only the second like that this season. Don’t worry how we got it just be glad that we did. That is your mantra for the next two weeks.

Maybe this chaotic anniversary of last year's chaos was the best way to win. Keep your eye on the fixture list for next season, in case Leeds United and Wolves are becoming one of those historic battle reenactment societies, getting together once a year to dress up and go crazy on the memories of the good old bad old days. Which is, 135 years after the Football League was founded, basically what football is now anyway.

At 3-0 up on Saturday, with half an hour to play, and other Premier League scores a kindness, I remembered last season’s relatively routine 3-0 win at Watford. And I remembered watching Rodrigo and Jackie Harrison later, reviewing the season for LUTV, talking about how they thought that result meant safety was assured. And how they looked ruefully at each other across the sofas, puffing out their cheeks and rolling their eyes. They were remembering what came next. Four consecutive games of utter despair, followed by most of a fifth until Gelhardt and Struijk saved a day against Brighton.

The worst thing a team can do in a relegation battle, especially one as crowded and narrow as this, is relax. Perhaps that's why Javi Gracia, the new coach with the soft demeanour, has been gently insisting that he is actually stressed to fuck inside. He'll want to be careful with his new crew, during the international break, that the 'good atmosphere' from this result doesn't become complacency. A few replays of Illan Meslier's astonishing save from Raúl Jiménez should help remind them about the margins, his big right arm springing up to block a shot coming from two yards away, with a big outstretched middle finger at the end directed at the France national team coach.

Before that save, Meslier had watched the ball being volleyed over his head into his open goal, after Marc Roca turned the goalie's headed clearance into a great chance for Wolves. After it, a shot zipped by him when Max Wöber's attempted block deflected it t'other way. Often, Meslier is entitled to suggest the team doesn't deserve his match-winning saves. But that's not his way, or theirs. He does what he can, they do what they can, everybody is doing what they can.

One of the defining characteristics of this era of Leeds is fortitude. These players — enough have stayed to assimilate the new ones in their ways — have persisted through Marcelo Bielsa's back-breaking first summer, the shock of losing to Derby in the play-offs, the dreadful winter that nearly derailed promotion, the dreadful pandemic that nearly did the same, the dismissive attitude of pundits who didn't believe a crazy coach and a bunch of players who had, in some cases, worked up from League Two could work in the Premier League. I think their determination would have kept Leeds up if Bielsa had stayed last season. I think it would have kept Leeds up if Jesse Marsch had stayed this season. I think it will keep Leeds up this season. They almost made Michael Skubala a legend and now Javi Gracia is tapping into their attitude. I believed Marsch when he used to say he 'likes our players' and that he'd never met any like them. I like them too.

That means accepting their faults and this match was a great example. Luke Ayling scored at the same end of the same ground, and did the same celebration, as his last goal, one year ago; he snuck away to the back post to meet Roca's (good! we did a good!) corner and head it firmly into the net. Bill could have scored two at the back post last week against Brighton, to make up for his toil against Kaoru Mitoma. At Wolves, he'd spent the first half being tied in knots by and/or chasing Daniel Podence, Jonny and Max Kilman, and being closed down by João Gomes — it looked like a Wolves tactic to hit him with two markers whenever he got the ball. Boy did he struggle. And then he scored a crucial goal anyway, and so much for Wolves' plan to turn him into a weakness.

See also Jackie Harrison, often despairing in recent weeks at the product of his crossing feet and collapsing on his own goalline last week. He made a goal and scored a goal in that game anyway, then opened the scoring here with a secure finish on Wilf Gnonto's cross. Check Wöber too, on that second Wolves goal, his eyes to the heavens after as if asking who he had upset and how. Either side of that deflection he was brilliant, and this was his reward? Well, exactly. The tale of this Leeds team is that they can't do right for doing wrong. Without the self assurance of true elite footballers, they go out to play with their weaknesses near the surface. Being so close to mistakes means playing with bravery, and that's what had Bielsa admiring them in his final weeks, bewildered that they would go out game after game getting hurt the same ways with only the minimum of complaining. Take Harrison's goal against Brighton. It's easy to imagine that shot sailing into the Kop, and the reaction he'd have heard from the fans catching the ball. Anyway, he tried.