Against Stoke, Leeds U21s brought football back - The Square Ball 1/10/22
GOOD MEAN FUN
Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman
As I stumble into October, trying to remember what football
was and what we used to do, bless the Leeds United Under-21s for their brazen
reminder that the game at its best can be about young lads messing about having
fun. Cruelly expending some other young lads, true, but they only play for
Stoke.
As the curtain raisers for this season’s short second act,
Leeds’ kids played with an anxiety to please that was denied them at Elland
Road back in the other epoch. Their name was on the board of the last thing we
saw that looked like football, but that eleven was given over to personalities
like Pat Bamford, Luke Ayling, Liam Cooper. Then came the Academy Dreams approved-reality
show, lavishing attention on a bunch who have moved on from the U21s — Joe
Gelhardt, Sam Greenwood, Charlie Cresswell, Nohan Kenneh — and one or two
others who now have to give reasons why they’re still hanging around for
another series, if anyone’s making one.
The night’s players had a lot of reasons to impress, and the
most heartfelt attempt was Sean McGurk’s, who seems to have looked at his role
in Academy Dreams like a mirror and cut his shoulder length copper hair. I
think this is a mistake — sure, he was looking a lot like Feargal Sharkey in
his 1980s post-Undertones pre-environmental campaigner ‘Good Heart’ crooner
phase, but he looked good, and looked distinctive. Now, with a short back and
sides and a floppy fringe, the floodlights at York muting his ginger mop, he
looks like Charlie Allen.
Allen in the first half stole McGurk’s thunder from the
other wing, combining with Cody Drameh to torture Stoke. After a cautious i.e.
boring opening ten minutes, Leeds realised they had an advantage against the
left-back and goalkeeper and started making the most of it, like a gang of
meanies. It started with a backheel from Mateo Joseph that nearly brought a
goal, as Harvey Sutcliffe’s cross was headed across goal by Allen, where Joseph
couldn’t dive on it. The move redrew the line of what Leeds thought they could
do, and if the stats guys forgot for a while about measuring throw-in types and
the sixth pass from nothing, and started counting backheels and nutmegs
instead, the kids would have been breaking records.
United’s play didn’t quite cleave but the goalie, Tommy
Simkin, a seventeen-year-old ‘former British karate champion’ according to
Stoke’s website, was there to help. Darko Gyabi insisted on a couple of forward
passes from midfield, the second going wide right to Drameh. He crossed low to
the front post, directly to the grasp of the crouching keeper, but he chopped
at that greasy Nike Flight like a pile of bricks on a plank while Joseph was
following fashion as well as the ball so he could pounce. It’s the in thing
now, since Erling Haaland came to town, that number nines are looking hungrier
already, trying to replicate his desire for sticking the ball in from two yards
like it’s the 1980s again.
Goal two also went to Joseph after he simply intimidated the
goalie into giving Leeds the ball. Tapping a back pass to his right, Simkin
turned possession into a race with Joseph and promptly backed out, veering
vaguely away in a panic. The ball went via McGurk to Sonny Perkins, whose shot
was blocked and bounced back to Joseph, who controlled on his chest and blasted
a half-volley in from a tight angle. I should feel bad for the goalkeeper for
these two goals but I imagine he has family and friends to do that, so it would
be mean little for me to add any more sympathy than I normally feel for a young
person who has to live in Stoke, which to be fair is quite a lot. At least he
can still be proud he doesn’t play for Port Vale.
Stoke couldn’t stay out of trouble, and some odd midfield
work from friend Simkin put his defender under pressure down Leeds’ left.
Joseph put McGurk into the gap behind, and with a couple of sways from the
Snodgrass manual he got to the byline, crossed low, and a defender set up
Perkins for a tap in.
A 3-0 half-time lead meant the result was taken care of, and
some of the heat went out of the second half — until he was subbed, McGurk kept
aiming low crosses for the six yard box but our young pal in goal had recovered
some of his martial determination. A couple of distracted moments revealed the
youth of United’s defence but Stoke let them off. Eighteen-year-old midfielder
Morten Spencer was playing centre-back next to Kris Moore, lofting gorgeous
long range passes while relieved there were no rambunctious target men to battle
with. To make things tidy in the closing stages, Drameh stole the ball under a
defender’s slow rotation, ran to the byline, and played a pull-back for Joseph
to swing into the roof of the net for a hat-trick and a 4-0 win.
That put Mateo Joseph one ahead of Sonny Perkins in the U21s
scoring chart, although Perkins has the distinction of scoring in every game
he’s played for club and country this season so far. Their matesy rivalry has
already got people talking of them as the new Gelhardt and Greenwood, because
now they have their own TV show they’re basically old hat. The season as a
whole is looking more like the one before last, when Leeds stormed out of PL2
Division 2 as champions, only to suffer the tough knocks and relegation that
Amazon are showing a version of now. Perhaps that’s the pattern: the kids get a
first season of frolicsome joy, then a second one of hard slaps to prepare them
for Premier League benches, the Championship loanheap, or transfers to Scotland
or the grim Lancastrian coast. In the meantime, backheels and 4-0 wins will do
very nicely.