Top scoring Leeds U21s can also defend - The Square Ball 12/10/22

SUNDERLAND SHUT-OUT

Written by: Rob Conlon

The bad news is that Sonny Perkins isn’t going to score in every game he ever plays in a Leeds shirt. The good news is he doesn’t have to. For the first time since leaving West Ham to choke on their bubbles, Perkins played a game of football and didn’t score a goal. At Sunderland on Monday night, Leeds Under-21s scored the fewest goals they have scored in a match all season, but keeping only their second clean sheet of the campaign meant Willy Gnonto’s first in a Leeds shirt was enough for a 1-0 win. It keeps them top of the Premier League 2’s second tier, too.

From second bottom of the division, Sunderland weren’t supposed to provide one of Leeds’ toughest tests of the season so far. Their line-up showed how football as an industry has become obsessed with the developing and trading of teenagers, and that the spontaneity of a player’s progression can never be predicted by a formula of data, scouting, and logic. Sunderland’s team featured a Costa Rica international (Jewison Bennette) and players reared in the academies of Bayern Munich (Leon Dajaku), PSG (Edouard Michut), and Scum (Amad Diallo). None of that quintet can get in Sunderland’s first team ahead of Jack Clarke. And none were a match for Sam Greenwood or Morten Spencer, two of Leeds’ better performers, and two players reared in the academy of, er, Sunderland.

Diallo is experiencing the same frustration that we mere mortals, who can only dream of becoming pro footballers, face at the end of high school, applying for our first jobs and being told we don’t have enough experience, unable to get any experience until somebody gives us a job. It’s the same problem many Leeds players are facing either out or loan or while banging their heads against the ceiling between the U21s and the first team.

Diallo joined Scum from Atalanta in a transfer that could be worth £37m. He is a senior Ivory Coast international and has played in the Champions League. But now he is playing for Sunderland’s U21s because, in the words of first-team boss Tony Mowbray, he has to “develop the core materials you need to be a competitive footballer”. That’s Diallo’s problem, and Scum’s, so whatever — but I can’t help wondering whether young players at Leeds like Crysencio Summerville and Joffy Gelhardt aren’t thinking what Diallo must be thinking: ‘Don’t we learn to be a competitive footballer by, like, playing competitive football?’

Here’s hoping Leeds found the type of competition they need in Sunderland. Coach Michael ‘Skoobs’ Skubala described the first half as “a real sort of open but toe to toe game”. There were nice moments of play from both sides between the two penalty areas, without many clear opportunities at either end.

Mateo Joseph had the best chance when his header was cleared off the line, after Greenwood’s free-kick from the right was put back across goal by Kris Moore. Joseph loves scoring, celebrating each goal like it’s a winner in the Champions League final whether it’s for the U21s or in a first-team friendly, and reacted by pleading to the linesman to let him have another even though the ball clearly hadn’t crossed the line. The rest of Leeds’ shots were from distance, Gnonto, Gelhardt, Spencer and Gyabi all sending tame efforts towards goal. Sunderland came closest with their only notable attempt, Diallo bending a free-kick towards the top corner, Kristoffer Klaesson making an excellent save to paw the ball away for a corner.

Some half-time tinkering from Skoobs asked Joseph to start drifting wide, allowing Joffy to get more space in the middle. Whether or not it was due to that tactic, Leeds threatened more in the second half — after Edouard Michut flashed two shots past Klaesson’s far post shortly after the restart. Cody Drameh was soon smashing the ball against Sunderland’s woodwork, but Leeds weren’t waiting around to rue a missed chance. Harvey Sutcliffe wriggled into the box, and Gnonto took the ball from his makeshift left-back with the authority of a forward telling a defender to leave the scoring to the scorers, then thumped a shot through Sunderland’s ‘keeper. Gnonto bloody loves celebrating whenever a teammate scores, and now he had his chance to start his own party, only for Darko Gyabi to grab him by his collar and send him spinning to the floor for a pile on.

Leeds made more opportunities, but the forwards were lacking their usual mojo. They could rely on a defence that was not allowing Sunderland near their goal. Morten Spencer is a midfielder by trade, but savoured charging into tackles from centre-half. Sutcliffe was giving Diallo flashbacks to lectures from Mowbray by knocking him to the floor to win the ball back or sprinting around him in possession while Diallo was moaning at his teammates. When Sunderland did get past Leeds’ defence, Klaesson was alert to make a one-on-one save before he knew the linesman had raised his flag.

After spending most of the season talking about his attackers, Skoobs could finally praise his defence:

“Kris Moore has really sort of taken a leadership role on to organise because he’s probably the most consistent one in the team. Morten [Spencer]’s come in alongside him and I think he’s done really well. I think he did really well today, he was tackling, he was heading, but also his balls forward were superb, so he’s had a real good game.

“Harvey was really good until he had to go off with injury, and then Cody [Drameh], I think goes under the radar, but he’s had three really top games and against that good winger, Cody was controlling him. So as a back four, they were really good today.”

There was also appreciation from Skoobs for Greenwood and Darko Gyabi’s positioning in protecting the back four, which finished with another surprising face at left-back. Sutcliffe came off with ten minutes to go due to injury, and was replaced by Charlie Allen. Allen is normally an attacker, but became the fourth person to appear out of position at left-back for the U21s this season after Keenan Carole, Alfie McCalmont, and Sutcliffe himself. Allen relished frustrating Diallo as much as Sutcliffe, and was nearly involved in a second Leeds goal when surging forward after making a forceful tackle, only for his shot to be deflected into an offside Gelhardt before Joseph put the ball into the bottom corner. On his newest auxiliary left-back, Skoobs said:

“Charlie’s a right footer, [the winger is] a left footer who ducks inside, so it causes a crash. Charlie’s really nimble and quick so actually going out there, getting pressure on the ball really quick and just stopping their threat — he’s out of position definitely — but as a sub for five minutes it just takes the sting out of the winger.”

Only at Leeds United can a clean sheet and some sturdy defending leave me thinking we really ought to just sign some bloody left-backs.