Leeds United's Arsenal hammering just the way it is against Premier League elite — the final word — Yorkshire Post 24/8/25
By Stuart Rayner
Buoyed by victory five days earlier, the Championship
champions, strengthened by around £100m of summer recruits, travelled to an
Arsenal side missing Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus, Christian Norgaard and Ben
White, who had Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka go off injured, and Eberechi Eze
not signed in time to play.
By the end 15-year-old Max Dowman was running them ragged as
Gabriel Martinelli watched on unused. Leeds United had only one player injured,
albeit a key one in captain Ethan Ampadu.
No one batted an eyelid as Arsenal strolled to a 5-0 win.
Is this what we really want from our country's top sporting
export?
There was fury from social media but it is hard to take
criticism of Daniel Farke as a managerial "fraud" seriously when
those same insults were being bandied about during the rocky – or even just
flat – periods of matches last season en route to a 100-point title.
The proper gauge of a fanbase is those who follow the team
away. There was no booing, no cries of "You're not fit to wear the
shirt". The travelling support just sang along as if they had not noticed
what was happening on the grass.
This is just the way it is in the Premier League, or at
least its elite end.
Arsenal are reckoned to have spent £1bn during manager Mikel
Arteta's six-year reign. Now they finally have a proper centre-forward and now
Viktor Gyokeres has his first two goals for them after a miss which made you
wonder if this was another big-money signing feted not to work, they could end
the campaign as the best team in England.
"For a team like us when they are on it, effective, and
score five goals from five shots on target, it's always difficult,"
lamented Farke, unable to fall back on excuses, grasping at how his side did
not cave in when 4-0 down after an hour.
Howard Wilkinson needed just two seasons to turn Leeds from
Second to First Division champions in the 1990s. Don Revie took five in the
60s, but was never out of the top four in that time.
"Hopefully in a few years we are competitive at this
level," was Farke's damning comment.
There have always been and will always been elite teams in
English football but never a chasm so wide to the rest. Even if Leeds wanted to
match Arsenal's spending – an estimated £255m this summer – the rules would not
allow it. And the English footballing aristocrats are themselves trying to
bridge a gap after 22 title-free seasons.
The result is hopeless mismatches like this.
"You wish for this fixture to be after the Champions
League perhaps but it's their first home game of the season when everyone is
fully on it on the back of an important win away at Man United and the new
signing (Eze) is there before kick-off," noted Farke. "The whole
stadium is buzzing."
The first 10 minutes were played almost entirely in Leeds'
half, and although a blocked Noni Madueke shot and Odegaard's wide were all it
amounted to, the visitors were being worn down.
The intensity of Arsenal's pressing frazzled Leeds' minds.
Jayden Bogle was booked for fouling Madueke as he tried to control a hospital
pass from goalkeeper Lucas Perri, who had faffed about with the ball in his
six-yard box.
In the 16th minute Gyokeres' rushed a gimme of an
opportunity when Anton Stach gave up a ball he took with his back to goal after
more unnecessary intricacy.
Daniel James had a shot blocked after 11 minutes but it was
the 20th before Leeds broke the shackles in any meaningful way, another
smothered effort for the winger leading to a corner. David Raya tipped over
Pascal Struijk’s header.
That was the exception to the rule of Arsenal probing and
pressuring, Leeds befuddled by their movement and wasteful under pressure.
They were not sharp enough mentally either, as when Jurrien
Timber got between centre-backs Struijk and Joe Rodon to head in a 34th-minute
corner.
One-nil at half-time offered a glimmer of hope, but Ampadu's
deputy Ilia Gruev surrendered possession in stoppage time for Saka to double
the lead with a fierce shot Perri could only wave at.
Gyokeres broke Leeds' offside trap to glide inside
negligible resistance from Struijk and score, then Timber and fellow full-back
Riccardo Calafiori both had time and space to convert a corner Struijk could
not clear. It was Timber who did.
Lukas Nmecha and Sean Longstaff were waiting to come on, but
with 56 minutes gone, substitutions were no longer about the result, just squad
management.
Arsenal brought on Dowman and the Premier League's
second-youngest debutant after fellow substitute Ethan Nwanieri shot over, then
volleyed wide before an exhausted-looking Stach clipped his ankle in the third
added minute.
Gyokeres buried the penalty.
With Leeds' shortcomings largely forced by Arsenal's
intensity, it was hard to be too critical of them.
