Like the old days, Leeds need help from Jansson and Wood - The Square Ball 20/5/22

CLASS OF 17

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

A quick poll of pals indicates Thursday night’s were the big games nobody could bear to watch. Congratulations to the Premier League for creating a competition so full of tension and ‘this means more’ drama that its core viewership would rather puke than sit down to watch a game and look at the adverts. I braved these terrible spectacles so permit to tell you how things went.

The match between Everton and Crystal Palace had less immediate significance for Leeds United Football Club and Friday morning’s headlines tell you enough about that one. Knowing a win would make them safe from relegation, Everton were pleasantly down 2-0 at half-time, but came back to win 3-2, sending Frank Lampard Junior charging around like a once-a-year racegoer fighting a lamppost. His Palace counterpart, Patrick Vieira, also took a turn around the pitch at full-time, hacking away at the shins of an Everton fan who got more grief back than they had to give. Lampard wouldn’t hear a word said against the celebrations, even if they were only for avoiding relegation, not for winning Premier League’s or Champions Leagues like he’s used to. His message seemed to be that these things still count because not everybody gets to be Frank Lampard. As for being Frank Lampard, the rush to canonise him began as soon as Dominic Calvert-Lewin headed in the 85th minute winner. I think it might be a bit soon for that — we can’t be sure this really is the ‘great escape’ until we’ve tested his skills more thoroughly by, say, putting him in prison. The question his sycophants are asking today is, what can Lampsy have said to the players at half-time to inspire such a fightback? Dunno, maybe the exact opposite of everything he said to them before kick-off? Anyway, Everton are safe. Their fiscally responsible owners, with their keen track record for sensible expenditure, can now hand a blank chequebook to Lamps and sit back to enjoy next season’s rewards.

The bigger problem for Leeds was and is Burnley Football Club. Down at Villa Park, they stole a depressing point by sticking resolutely to the Burnley plan: Ashley Barnes tried to take Tyrone Mings out in the first few minutes with a flying elbow, and after avoiding any punishment, scored a penalty just before half-time. Emi Buendia gave that away, as he had seemed determined to do, but started the second half by hammering in John McGinn’s cross to make it 1-1. Before and after those three minutes of action the ball was mainly being hammered by Villa players at that bastard Nick Pope, who made eight saves, a lot of which had me thinking things like, that bastard Nick Pope is some goalkeeper, the bastard. Burnley were deploying their 5-3-2 that got a 1-0 defeat against Spurs, and because since selling Jack Grealish and signing Buendia, Danny Ings, Leon Bailey and Phillipe Coutinho they’ve remained creatively witless (except against Leeds) Villa played themselves further and further away from Burnley’s goal the longer the game went on. They went so far back that, with five minutes left, Emi Martinez had to stop Connor Roberts from scoring off a Charlie Taylor cross, then rely helplessly on Tyrone Mings blocking Wout Weghorst’s shot into an otherwise empty net. This was an incredible piece of defending, and if it keeps Leeds up, I will seek out and treasure a piece of Mings’ constant chewing gum like he’s Nina Simone. If it doesn’t then he can go back to pissing off.

That draw means Leeds have to do better at Brentford on Sunday than Burnley do at home to Newcastle, so after fluttering all our eyelashes at Pontus Jansson, it turns out that Chris Wood is the player with the fate of not one but two former clubs resting on his big bonce. He missed Newcastle’s last match with a hip injury but Eddie Howe says he could be back at the weekend; even for the sake of Wood’s own sanity it might be best if he watches this one from the bench, and to avoid a lifetime of accusations from whichever club’s fans end up feeling most aggrieved on Sunday night. Apart from Charlie Taylor, for obvious reasons, and the players either still with us or who came up and moved on, I can’t find any other split loyalties from the near-miss Garry Monk group of 2017, so am expecting good luck messages from Marcus Antonsson and Hadi Sacko before Sunday.

Going down the leagues, as Leeds still might, didn’t make Thursday night’s football look much better. In the League Two play-off semi-final, Swindon Town took a 2-1 first leg lead to Port Vale, conceded in the first half, then got knocked out on penalties. At least one of their players then had to fight off Port Vale fans who were trying to knock them even more out during the on-pitch ‘celebrations’. No word yet on Port Vale being slung out of the Football League for this, but given they are only in the Football League in the first place because they lobbied behind the scenes to take Leeds City’s place in 1919, a wrong that over 100 years later still has not been put right, this seems like an excellent opportunity for belated justice. Put it this way: it’s Port Vale’s fault that Leeds City were expelled and banned; replacing City in the city is why Leeds United exists at all. If Leeds United didn’t exist I’d be having a much happier Friday than I am, looking forward to a peaceful weekend, so for this crime alone Port Vale should be closed down immediately.