Leeds United 1-1 Brighton: One left - The Square Ball 16/5/22

CONFIDENCE & INDEPENDENCE

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

Somewhere under, beneath the burden of the sweat drenched polyester straitjacket also known as Leeds United’s 21/22 home shirt, there is still something resembling what we remember of our football team that we love. It’s hard to argue that the players, who all collapsed to the ground at the final whistle, did not give everything they could to getting a vital point against Brighton. It’s tough to tell them, as they struggle to their feet, that it still isn’t enough. Even if they’d won, we would still be needing more from them next Sunday. And people thought murderball was hard.

One strategy now might be making appeals to the Premier League to only play stoppage time at Brentford. Pick a random number between one and ten to decide the number of minutes. Draw the starting scoreline out of a hat. And when the clocks in Burnley’s game against Newcastle and Everton’s at Arsenal hit ninety minutes, Leeds can kick-off in London, ready to do what they need to do, or not. I doubt the league will go for that, but I suspect we’ll end up with something very much like it anyway. Happiness will be Leeds going 2-0 up in the first fifteen minutes next Sunday, while Burnley and Everton both go 2-0 down. Truth is a shot, like Joe Gelhardt’s in the second minute against Brighton, being blocked on the line by Liam Cooper’s face. Imagine that happening for two hours and look forward to Sunday.

That was far from United’s only chance against Brighton, as after three matches camped in their own half Leeds made a long awaited return to the attacking end of the pitch. Most of that exploration still had to wait until the second half. Leeds did start brightly but panic was setting in as Brighton discovered a system failure between Junior Firpo and Liam Cooper at left-back, both passing players on for marking by invisible third and fourth team-mates. In the 20th minute, Leeds should have gone ahead: Rodrigo burst through the middle, and a pass left to Jackie Harrison was a golden chance. Of all the mysteries surrounding Rodrigo, here is the biggest: how does a player with 27 caps for Spain, who got to two Europa League finals with Benfica, and played five seasons for Valencia in La Liga and the Champions League, not have the composure or the instinct to play such a simple pass? Mistakes are one thing, they happen, not everything will always work right. But one thing Rodrigo should know is what to do, and instead here he was again, dawdling, indecisive, losing possession while he lost himself in thought. Brighton had no qualms about stealing the ball from him, running up the other end and getting Danny Welbeck a goal, and now everything that had been promising better was undone by becoming exactly the same. It took a little longer than the last two games, but Leeds were a goal down. At least they kept eleven players on the pitch.

Jesse Marsch said that, “I could still see the looks on some of their faces at half-time that we weren’t 100 per cent believing that we could do it,” and given that much of what he claims to have been talking to the players about in the last two months is belief, supported by those infamous Gandhi quotes, it’s hard to conclude that any of that rhetoric is paying off in the dressing room. If Leeds have an inspiration at the moment it’s Raphinha, leading by glowering, frustrated example, yelling at the crowd to give the ball back, yelling at the bench about the game, yelling at his teammates to get in the box for one of his not so long-throws. Those throw-ins are Raphinha’s whole mood. Like playing right wing-back or inside-forward, they’re an insulting waste of his talents and he struggles to hide his disdain for what’s being asked of him. But he is grimly determined and loud and adamant that if that’s what he has to do, he’s fucking well doing it then. Sometimes, looking at Raphinha, I think he’s packed it in, his mind is on Barcelona. Other times I’m looking at someone who, if he has his own ladder to climb, doesn’t want to condemn the club that handed it to him to snakes. Against Brighton his confidence and independence were vital to keeping Leeds going.

Robert Sanchez pulled off an excellent save just before half-time, to stop a shot from Mateusz Klich going inside his post after a short corner. In the second half Sanchez had to be alert to an on-stamp Raphinha free-kick, aimed at the top corner instead of into the box. Released down the left Rodrigo rediscovered his instincts and sent a low cross into Raphinha’s path, that under tackling pressure he put wide. Harrison had time in the box but his shot was blocked; Leeds kept the move alive and Klich’s shot was saved. Klich played in Gelhardt on the edge of the area, and Sanchez didn’t move for a shot that went just wide.

The lulling feeling that this was good kept being deflated; some awful first half pinball play, when Leeds just seemed to be kicking the ball against each other in a ten metre square, was inverted near the end of the second half, when Brighton passed slickly to each other on the edge of Leeds’ area for what seemed like forever. Danny Welbeck was given a clear back post header to win the game 2-0 but missed it, and Brighton remain on the cusp where they’ve been for at least two seasons, one really good striker away from bothering the Europa League. How far Leeds are from following them depends a lot on next weekend, but when Elland Road started singing Marcelo Bielsa’s name in the last ten minutes, and ‘Sack the board’, and other variations on the theme, it was the season’s last exhalation of the pent-up frustration about the ever growing distance between what this club says it is going to be, and what it then does. Given there were walk-out protests at Everton as early in the season as November, while Old Trafford turns green and yellow at the merest hint of adversity, the chastened board should be grateful that Elland Road has kept its anger in reserve for so long, and can have no complaints about the crowd taking their last chance to let them hear it.

Pascal Struijk’s 92nd minute equaliser can be read as an apology, but in fact it exists in the realm of defiant euphoria separate from boardroom or bench where the players, beset and bewildered by their weekly ninety minutes of toil, keep putting in their last effort to hit the line. Leeds have taken points in stoppage time against Wolves, Palace, Brentford, Norwich and Wolves again this season, with a lot of them either directly or indirectly thanks to Joe Gelhardt. That’s either an argument that he should have played more, or that he’s perfect being held for late impacts, depending on your preference. Here, after ninety minutes of being used as an old-fashioned target, Leeds hoping to recreate the Norwich winning magic by lumping the ball at his head for a flick on to Raphinha, it was a moment of calm on the line that saved the day.

Clarity came first from Diego Llorente, so often so headless, not blazing a shot over but dinking a pass wide. What happened next is really easy to describe: Gelhardt, on the byline with defenders between him and a crowded six yard box, decided he was going to beat those players and cross and he kept the ball until he’d done it. Easy to describe it, but only a special player could actually do everything required: the immediate decision, followed by the concentration on carrying it through, the focus on achieving what he was setting out for. Brighton didn’t make it easy. He had to beat Marc Cucurella, Lewis Dunk twice, then evade Cucurella again as Alexis Mac Allister brought his boot in. But because he knew what he was doing, Gelhardt made every touch look simple, even logical. What else could there have been but one cutback, another cutback, a chip over Dunk’s body, a gentle volley to the back post? Credit to Struijk, too. I can easily imagine his header going in the side netting. He didn’t think anything of the kind. Then, in the madness of the celebrations, came Raphinha and Klich, dragging teammates out of the frenzied crowd, calming tempers, bringing everyone’s attention back to the moment. Still a few minutes to play. Still a job to be done.

A big job, on Sunday, in Brentford. Leeds still have hope, and thanks to the end of this game, a little bit more than just that. The list of teams they’ve taken late points from reads, Norwich apart, like a list of the mid-table clubs we were supposed to be competing with this season, not envying from underneath. If it takes 95 minutes or more, the players have shown they’re willing to fight those teams in the here and now. While the board and their new manager talk about future games in Europe with a team of players we hope we’ll develop one day, the players we actually have still know that the fastest route to a dream is found between the referee’s first and last whistles. Raphinha has an extraordinary future ahead of him but he knows that’s not until next season. Before any of that he has ninety long minutes of long throws and horrible football to get through to give us, we hope, a sigh of relief as deep and joyful as any we’ll know for years. This club’s future really shouldn’t be his problem. But the guy with one game left can still have the biggest influence.