Leeds United 2-3 Fulham: Gloomy Sunday - The Square Ball 24/10/22
ARM ROUND THE SHOULDER
Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman
A sodden morning of murk barely allowing afternoon to happen
was not kind to those Leeds fans, not inclined to give up their tickets, who
trudged through puddles outside and inside Elland Road for a grim Sunday of
duty instead of pleasure. Leeds United are playing, so we have to go. With no
domestic television coverage, no glamorous opponent, no razzle and no dazzle,
this was the Premier League showing its arse, hardly distinguishable from the
Championship we longed for so long to escape. At one point Fulham hit a long
ball up to Aleksandar Mitrovic and Liam Cooper headed it back over halfway, and
amid the damp muttering crowd the Champo vibes were strong. This could have
been any game, anywhere, at any time, the only difference from 2017 that Leeds
are bereft and clueless at the bottom end of a different table. The more time
passes since Marcelo Bielsa was fired, the more Faustian that pact looks. Maybe
that did secure Leeds United’s Premier League status. But did we pay for it
with our club’s soul?
In the here and now, Jesse Marsch’s mad week continued, and
at time of writing it is somehow lurching into a fortnight of misadventure and
what feels like a doomed trip to Anfield. After four changes at Leicester,
Marsch made six changes here, and nobody is really sure why. If this was
mitigation against three games in a week, it didn’t work, and exposed Marsch as
not up to a simple Premier League obstacle. And if that’s a fitness issue, why
is that a problem now? Whatever inspired the changes, the solutions ignored all
good sense. Whenever Mateusz Klich has played from the bench this season he has
looked good, but with Tyler Adams missing, Sam Greenwood started in midfield. I
suppose it worked at Brentford when we were desperate. Here, Greenwood did fine
until Klich replaced him. In attack, whenever Joe Gelhardt has been seen, he’s
looked well suited to the football Marsch wants to play, and he set up a
stoppage time goal here by driving through Fulham’s defence, tackling to keep
the ball, then sliding a superb pass for Crysencio Summerville to finish on top
of the goalkeeper. It was all made by Gelhardt, and it was a textbook Marsch
goal, and in a three-game week when Leeds have struggled with everything but in
particular with scoring, Gelhardt has been brought on for a grand total of 21
minutes of regulation time.
There’s not much to add beyond what happened at Leicester on
Thursday, except to say that despite — or because of — changing half the team
this was a continuation of it, and therefore worse. Leeds started brightly, a
good couple of minutes in the opening stages earning an appreciative round of
applause from the Elland Road crowd. It looked like more of the usual near
quarter of an hour when Fulham woke up and broke through, but Marc Roca’s block
on the line and Robin Koch’s clearance suggested Leeds were up for the work
involved in not letting this fall apart. Five minutes later Brenden Aaronson
set up Jackie Harrison by passing as ever across the front of the box; this
time it put Harrison through but his shot was blocked, chance lost until the
spinning ball was nodded in by Rodrigo and Leeds were ahead. This was the
stuff! Leeds United, capitalising with a goal while they were on top. Maybe
things were going to go their way at last.
Maybe things would have kept going their way if Leeds hadn’t conceded three dopey times from set-pieces. Luke Ayling let Mitrovic ahead of him at a corner, to head in through Illan Meslier’s hands at the near post, so Fulham were level within five minutes. In the second half, a true judgement on the team’s organisation, as Pascal Struijk, Aaronson and Harrison debated who should press the second ball from a corner and left Bobby Decordova-Reid to head the cross in unmarked. Then a third from a throw-in, when Cooper’s feet were flat as Mitrovic darted to receive, leaving Koch no chance of safely tacking Harrison Reed and a simple way for Willian to score. You might think, of all people, that Ayling and Cooper would know what not to do with Mitrovic.
Marsch, throughout, looked as flummoxed as he did at
Leicester, forlorn and beaten in his bomber jacket. Up in the stands was Franky
Schiemer, his faithful assistant from Salzburg and from last season, who opted
for a distant consultancy role this season, based back in Austria. Presumably
hauled back over to help, nothing on his laptop screen altered Marsch from his
usual in-game course: change the striker, then change one of the attackers,
then change a midfielder, then throw Gelhardt on for the last five minutes and
pray. From Marsch, slumped on the edge of his dugout looking hollowed out, to
Schiemer, to Cameron Toshack to Mark Jackson to Rene Maric, nobody seems to have
any bright ideas for changing this. Nor Angus Kinnear, the bewildered chief
executive filmed after the game in a car park debate, shrugging and insisting
that “working behind the scenes” will turn this around. Yes, but what work?
Work doing what?
The crowd obviously has ideas for change. Leeds fans joined
in with Fulham’s ‘Sacked in the morning’ songs to Marsch, then modified it to
‘Sack the board’, then stopped singing altogether, perhaps knowing that songs
don’t make much difference in the disconnected Premier League, perhaps just
wanting to go home. It’s surprising that Marsch has not been sacked, because
that is the usual run of things in the Premier League, so maybe the board
really is considering sacking itself as a viable alternative. That rarely
happens, although the shape of the board at Leeds means it’s not impossible.
Andrea Radrizzani, Kinnear and Victor Orta were bearing the brunt on the front
row of the directors’ box, but with them was Peter Lowy, a billionaire
representative of the billionaire investors gathered in the background as 49ers
Enterprises. There’s been little sign of their billions at Elland Road so far,
although Lowy has taken on the role of silent executioner, flying in for
Bielsa’s last match then flying out again after Marsch was installed, without
saying a public word. Perhaps there will be a time when the ghostly minority
apparitions come for their majority shareholding partners.
It’s more likely that Marsch will go, so much that I keep
checking the clock, expecting something to be announced at any hour. Some fans’
minds are turning to doom, i.e. Sean Dyche, submitting to the idea that United’s
only hope is to defend and grind. Despite the slackness that let Mitrovic and
co waltz away with the game on Sunday, I don’t think that’s the answer. That a
squad with Pat Bamford, Rodrigo, Aaronson, Harrison, Sinisterra, Gelhardt and
Summerville, plus Sonny Perkins, Mateo Joseph and Wilf Gnonto, can not score
more than once in three games looks less a judgement on them than on the
supposedly attack-obsessed coach who keeps forcing them to play a style of
football that’s like trying to pour concrete through a kitchen funnel. There
are attacking players at Leeds who, given space and freedom, can come up with
creative ways to score. But even as Sinisterra, in particular, edges himself
closer and closer to the touchlines, the target remains the ‘D’ of the penalty
box and all his width does is increase his distance from it. To save themselves
this season Leeds United will need wins, not draws, and they have a squad full
of matchwinners who can make up for any deficiencies at the back. But for as
long as the forwards are wearing the same confused, uninspired expression as
their coach, it’s tough to imagine how they can do any better.
At the moment it feels like that face is what will do for
Jesse Marsch. He’s a coach who puts great value in body language, in
communication, in setting the tone every day for a positive environment. He
looked, as he trudged across the pitch at full-time, scowling and mumbling to
himself as he booted a stray ball into touch, about as far away from the
inspirational leader he works so hard to be as I imagine he could ever want. He
is not looking like himself. The Leeds players stayed well clear of his funk.
Only Fulham’s Tim Ream, a USMNT stalwart who predated Marsch at NYRB, went to
speak to him, to put an arm round his shoulder. Marsch is supposed to be
lifting his players’ spirits, but he’s relying on old friends from back home to
lift his.
Then there’s the fans’ spirits. How will he lift ours? “It’s
my job to help the team turn results so that the fans turn their opinion,” Marsch
said after the game. “I think given everything the fans were very supportive
today. I know there’s frustration, but the energy they had at the beginning of
the match was of optimism and belief. We’ve got to find a way again to use that
and to honour it.” He’s got the right questions. Has he got the answers?