JAMES' PLACE — Square Ball 2/4/24
Leeds United 3-1 Hull City: Sometimes
Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman
“Sometimes,” Marcelo Bielsa once said, “God puts things in
the right place,” ‘things’ being Kalvin Phillips, ‘the right place’ being
inside Birmingham City’s penalty area to score the only goal in Leeds United’s
centenary match in 2019. Phillips, bless his middle finger, is now learning
about life in the wrong places: Manchester, London. Hence, I guess,
‘sometimes’, because football is only occasionally kind.
How about Daniel James in the 96th minute, on the halfway
line, as far east as the Elland Road pitch allows, the ball at his feet, Hull
City’s goalie nowhere to be seen? Compared to being twelve yards out with only
Wojciech Szczęsny to beat, it might not feel like the rightest of places. Last
week James was feeling the pressure of a country’s dreams when he tried to
score a penalty to help Wales qualify for Euro 2024. This week, he was feeling
the pressure of a county that could be a country’s dreams, on top of the
pressure of missing that penalty. The wrong place. The right place. Sometimes.
Should Dan James thank God, or thank Joe Rodon?
Arguably Leeds needed Rodon’s two defensive headers and a
block more than they needed James to add a third goal, but most of all Leeds
needed some relief. A stoppage time corner, Ryan Allsop up from Hull’s goal
trying to equalise, Georginio Rutter trying to dribble out of the penalty area
as if he hadn’t seen where that got Kalvin Phillips for West Ham on Saturday.
Rodon was celebrating his block with the South Stand even before Joel Piroe was
putting James into Hull’s half with a decision to make: run for the corner and
safety, or go for goal risking a deflating miss and another Hull attack? The
finish, from so far out, was brilliant. The celebrations said it was all
worthwhile.
Leeds United are not quite in the right place in the
Championship table: somehow, Ipswich are. Second place was a fine target for
this season. Being second behind Ipswich Town was never part of the equation.
What Ipswich are, and how they’re doing what they’re doing, is a mystery to us
in West Yorkshire, because we’ve beaten them 4-3 and 4-0 and in the abstract,
statistical sense, while Leeds are close to our expected goals against (33
expected, 31 real) and for (71 expected, 75 real) Ipswich have conceded ten
more than they should have and scored an extra twenty. Twenty! And they’re a
mystery in the emotional sense because it feels like they’ve scored most of
those twenty like they did against Southampton just before we kicked off, as
the winning goal of five in the 1000th minute of sudden death added time. At
this point we have to stand back and applaud, respect however the heck Ipswich
are pulling this off, and assume it’s just never going to end, that they’re
going to keep scoring last minute winners until they’re in the Premier League,
in Europe, who even knows. Rather them, in any case, than Leicester City. They
also won yesterday, in the promotion race’s first game of the day, but they
still didn’t seem particularly chuffed about it. The three-way contest breaks
down with Leicester: agitated, Ipswich: joyful, Leeds United: tense.
Which is why we needed that third goal. We didn’t need, on
Easter Monday of all the cursed Leeds days, to be kicking off third, waiting
for games to finish like it was 2019 all over again and Hull were Wigan. Five
minutes before half-time Rodon and Illan Meslier were leaving a bouncing ball
to each other as if trying to summon Kiko Casilla’s ghost. When a penalty was
awarded in the second half it was cheered but then feared, because Leeds had a
chance to re-take the lead, but first someone would have to take the actual
penalty. The best thing: hope. The worst thing: hope. Junior Firpo pretended to
take responsibility. Dan James wasn’t getting involved. Joel Piroe took the
ball. Crysencio Summerville took over. Firpo put himself forward again. Ethan
Ampadu took charge. Summerville put the ball on the spot and, after torturing
his run up, put the ball into the right place – the net – and celebrated
meeting destiny with his shirt off. God, Summerville, the right place. He won
the penalty – Cree, not God, although maybe both – but it might have been
easier for everyone if Regan Slater hadn’t fouled him on his run around the
outside and in towards goal, and just let him score.
I suppose if you believe in destiny you don’t worry about
things like that, but the concern for Leeds fans is that destiny is real and it
exists to fuck us over. I realise I’m working through this match backwards but
it’s a sport full of hindsight, making this the right place to review the
starting eleven. After Watford, Daniel Farke called everything right before
kick-off: Liam Cooper dropped, Ampadu and Rodon together in defence, Firpo and
Byram the full-backs and Archie Gray into midfield with Glen Kamara. Naturally,
none of this went right in the sense we might have liked. Rodon hadn’t trained
due to a back spasm and played with painkillers: “a shock in the morning,”
Farke called it, “we were fearing that he couldn’t start.” Kamara was ill.
Byram, who always plays with question marks about his fitness, confessed to
Farke at half-time that he couldn’t sprint anymore and played another fifty
minutes anyway. Summerville had fitness “problems”. Rutter wasn’t mentioned,
but this was his second game in four days, after hernia surgery two weeks ago.
Archie Gray’s problem wasn’t fitness, but inexperience next to his sickly
midfield partner, plus a visiting crowd ready with ironic cheers for any of the
golden boy’s missteps.
Basically, in terms of things being in the right place, none
of these people should have been playing a game of football at this time, and
at times it showed. Byram scored, he says with his teeth, which are in his head
so we can call it a header, after Rutter drove through the middle of the pitch
as if trying to get the game won before his stitches unravelled – he beat four
players, for crying out loud – then played in Summerville, whose shot was saved
and span to Sam at the back post. Taking the lead after nine minutes was great
news, but for the next 75 minutes Leeds were beset by bad habits. Pat Bamford
was back to putting golden chances, this time a low cross into the six yard
box, over the bar when he has to score. Firpo got one of his old style first
half yellow cards for some clumsy, pointless foul miles from goal. Sometimes
after taking the lead, Farke allows his players a bit of rest out of
possession, but too often this goes how it did here, with Hull deciding
possession is great and using it to equalise. Ozan Tufan found space in a
Gruevless zone, while Gray and Kamara were otherwise engaged, and after Rodon
ran at him there was no getting back into shape as amid blocks, missed tackles
and general rushing around Hull got to the byline, Tyler Morton crossed, and
Fabio Carvalho clipped it in. Leeds, without Ilia Gruev dictating, kept trying
to force passes from Ampadu to the front: he complained, the forwards
complained, Gray and Kamara stayed out of it. Daniel Farke, as if testing
Elland Road’s patience, stuck to his anti-sub policy until he brought on Mateo
Joseph after seventy minutes and Piroe long after eighty.
