Leeds United 1-0 Watford: Above The Fray - The Square Ball 3/10/21

SEVEN FOR ONE

Written by Moscowhite • Daniel Chapman

A goal, a clean sheet, three points. Twenty shots, 66 per cent possession, one shot against on target. (And a disallowed goal, but whatever.) One sacked manager too, and it all sounds as easy as it was. Bless football, then, for making sure such a one-sided match against a garbage team was still sick and tense in stoppage time, so everybody got their money’s worth, even if they’d pay double not to.

Elland Road was not the noisy storm it was when West Ham came last week. All the storm this time was the weather. Big ups to the new drainage system beneath the grass, because Leeds are getting about as many dry home games this season as last, i.e. hardly any. The wind howled, the fans shivered, pre-match applause for 1966 World Cup winner Roger Hunt dampened the mood. It had been a wearying week since Michail Antonio’s shock winner, of recriminations, injury news, transfer speculation and anxious re-readings of the fixture lists and form tables. Nobody was in a mood for messing around. Leeds United’s only option was to win.

The players immediately set to work. Elland Road has a famous reputation for its fans, but most of this squad have been through a unique challenge by getting promoted and cementing Premier League football while empty stands echoed their joys and despairs back to them. Sometimes it’s down to the players to inspire the crowd, and after eighteen months inspiring themselves, they quickly won the support back from grousing fans in damp beer coats. Never mind the last six games, today Leeds were going to be worth watching.

They were worth watching against West Ham, too, and actually got more shots on target in that defeat. But while that was an absorbing contest, Rodrigo’s movement drawing you into close observation of how Raphinha and Mateusz Klich were orbiting him to pull the Hammers defence and midfield apart, there was nothing like that to look at against Watford. Marcelo Bielsa talks about two of the surest ways of playing well being passing out of your own half with the ball, and not letting the opponent come into yours with it, and this game was all about the latter. There wasn’t time for Rodrigo to look for a gap in midfield and drop deep to start an attack. Before the game ever came to those moments, Watford had always given the ball to Leeds. And if Leeds couldn’t control it straight away, Watford let them have another go. And if Leeds lost the ball altogether, a Watford player was always around to tee them up again.

Watford are sad trash and if that’s how they always are then Xisco Munoz was rightly sacked on Sunday morning. The only mystery is how they were so comfortably promoted, only losing five of 26 after Xisco took charge in December. They didn’t have their no.19 in midfield last season, though, who was so atrocious here I had to check my teamsheet, and then check Wikipedia, before I could be sure it really was their £3m signing from Tottenham, Moussa Sissoko, who played in the European Championship final for France in 2016. Like Danny Rose, who after opening the game with a big tackle on Jamie Shackleton realised stopping Raphinha was going to be a different matter and gave up, Sissoko looks like a lesson Watford will never learn about taking other London club’s cast-offs when they want a decent contract but can’t be bothered moving house. They’re talking to Claudio Ranieri about becoming their new manager, who presumably has kept a residence nearby since managing Chelsea and Fulham.

Perhaps Watford’s badness hindered Leeds. The Peacocks put their feathers to the accelerator from the first minute, but rather than building their own attacks, they were constantly adapting to the circumstances when Watford gave them the ball and invited a counter. Did you know that the phrase ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’ is to do with counting a horse’s teeth to determine its age, and therefore its monetary value, when someone gives you one as a present? It’s rude. But also, have you ever been given a horse? They’re massive creatures, dangerous and prone to panic when thrust into unfamiliar situations with new people, whether they’re trying to count their teeth or not. Leeds didn’t look in Watford’s gobs for a tally, but threw themselves onto their backs and rode them frantically around the pitch as they bucked, and the result was no goals from open play. I’m sorry that this metaphorical tangent doesn’t take into account the Hornets also being associated with a kind of deer but it started with a peacock driving a car anyway.

United’s shot count was ridiculous but it should have been stupid. It’s odd to say of a side that has taken the fourth most shots in the Premier League, but Leeds really should try shooting more. The players seem determined to make every chance such a sure thing they’re not giving the fates any opportunity to intervene and push things their way. Maybe this is from experience — when have the fates ever been kind to Leeds? — and maybe it’s what you do when you think your luck is out. But last week Jarrod Bowen blasted a shot off target and it hit two Leeds players and went in. I wish Leeds would forget about the square lay-offs and concentrate on hard and low, and let’s see if our luck is in when it hits somebody.

The goal Leeds got, eighteen minutes in, was proof they can be lucky, when their starting point is a whipped Raphinha corner. Watford took over the setup, flicking it on at the near post then heading down into the six yard box, where Diego Llorente forced a shot in. He was delighted to score, and to have Dan James on his shoulders in the celebrations. Straight away James should have had a penalty, blocked off as he ran to meet a pass, and 2-0 might have made the rest of the game simpler. As it was, Leeds needed some more luck in the second half when Illan Meslier, moments after being treated for a kick to his shoulder, bounced a corner off Liam Cooper’s head and into the net, and the goal wasn’t allowed. Cooper’s head was there to bop the dropped cross because Christian Kabasele had wrestled him to the ground. Cooper had also been wrestling him, but don’t expect me to care. Watford’s other best moment was when striker Josh King went down injured twice before half-time, because the pauses for his treatment took some of the menace out of Leeds.

Everything else was down to how Leeds wanted it to be, from how many goals they would score — only Tyler Roberts’ scissor kick off the bar was unfortunate, all the rest were misses — to how far Watford could get into the game. Still only 1-0 down in the last five minutes, it would have been rude if the Hornets hadn’t tried to equalise. United let the crowd get away from them, but not the actual game: one last round of Rodrigo – Raphinha – Klich patty-cake in the penalty area, followed by Llorente going down clutching his foot, were bad portents that took the terraces to another level of anxgstriness. Leeds gave up a foul throw in a dangerous area, and for a few moments lost control of their defending, until Roberts had a tactical lie down and Pascal Struijk was ushered onto the field. Watford, in their supposed late renaissance, had one shot, Joao Pedro from 25 yards, that didn’t travel three before Cooper’s arse blocked it. Watford’s pressure was an illusion conjured from Leeds United’s anxiety about getting their first win.

It wasn’t, in the end, too difficult, and while more goals would have been nice, the margin of performance and Xisco’s sacking bode well for Leeds leaving their lacklustre start behind them. This season looks out of Norwich City’s control, perhaps beyond Watford’s, while Burnley are losing their grip and Newcastle are sliding into a nightmare. Above the no-hoper line, the division looks tougher than last year, middling teams beating each other and ready to condemn Leeds for not strengthening more, but then here are Leeds with key players injured responding by getting more from Rodrigo, gaining an Ayling alternative in Shackleton, giving Harrison a rival with Dan James. The target is still what is was after promotion in summer 2020 — stay in the Premier League for season 2022/23 — and along the way the side is evolving, if not fast enough for an average fan’s impatience (which will always be a step ahead, it’s what we do). The important thing is that Leeds United’s destiny is in their own hands. There have been below-par performances this season, some bad moments, but nothing to compare with Watford’s all-out awfulness, the strategic hopelessness of Norwich, the rudderless disaster of Newcastle. Only Leeds can stop Leeds enjoying another comfortable mid-table finish, and why would we want to do that?