Junior Firpo and Leeds needed a break – now it has to be about more than that - The Athletic 27/2/23

By Phil Hay

It is not as if Junior Firpo, to quote the Arctic Monkeys, is Mr Inconspicuous in a Ford Mondeo. His drive of choice is a Rolls-Royce, number plate neatly personalised, and his partner is never far behind in a pink Lamborghini, often spotted bouncing gingerly over the potholes in Fullerton Park.

In that respect, you can see Firpo coming but only until he steps from the tunnel, at which point everything tends to cloud over. For 18 months at Leeds United, he has been hit by questions on repeat: what is he, and why did Leeds pay £13million ($15.5m) for him? Is there a handy left-back in there, hidden and trying to break cover? Then on a day when Leeds need someone, anyone, that someone is him. The club are bouncing again and Firpo is punching the air in the direction of the South Stand. Is this real? He doesn’t look sure himself.

It has been coming for Firpo bit by bit recently, which is not to say that history is suddenly destined to judge him kindly at Leeds, but that life has been kinder to him in the past few weeks. Kinder than it has been to many other people in these parts. Appearances became little steps towards confidence and competence, culminating on Saturday in a 77th-minute winner in a game Leeds could only afford to win. Firpo, in that moment, was up and running. Javi Gracia on the touchline was up and running. Leeds at last were free of a Sunday devoted to panic and fearing the worst.

Time will tell, naturally, and outlasting Southampton will go no further on its own than confirming that Leeds are better than the Premier League’s straggling side. But the city was burning bonfires on the night of their previous league win and Elland Road was gagging for it. Gracia, who watched the clock on Friday morning as he waited for his work permit to drop, met a 1-0 victory in the first game of a bona fide tough gig with a blend of cautious and optimistic vibes. “I could feel that all the people around the club needed a result,” Gracia said, spotting the obvious immediately. “If we play like this after one day, next week we are going to play better.”

What Firpo did with 13 minutes to go, running onto a backheel from Jack Harrison, stepping into space and rolling a shot under goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu, owed itself to the rope Gracia tried to give him.

Saturday as a whole was the tense scuffle it was supposed to be; second bottom versus bottom before kick-off and an afternoon that Southampton were not prepared to throw everything at early. Bazunu was ticked off for time-wasting before half-time.

Southampton’s hope seemed to be that killing a wedge of the match with the enormous but cumbersome Ebere Onuachu up front would allow a batch of three substitutes to force a win. But Crysencio Summerville worked his way out of a fix by a corner flag, Harrison anticipated Firpo’s run and Firpo pulled the trigger, his first league goal for Leeds. “You never know what’s going to happen,” Gracia joked.

Tactically, Gracia embraced the width Jesse Marsch tended to shun by asking Harrison and Willy Gnonto to hug the touchlines in possession. It was not immaculate or wildly sexy and for 45 minutes, the back-and-forth was mediocre; Leeds with most of it but the spectacle crying out for a goal and some flow.

Their shape, though, was tight throughout, even after Southampton’s managerial roll-of-the-dice, Ruben Selles, tried to ambush them with Theo Walcott, Ibrahima Diallo and Sekou Mara off the bench, and Firpo had the licence to overlap and underlap, to be present offensively and gravitate towards the far end of the field. His advance on 77 minutes outnumbered Southampton and Southampton paid for it. They might pay more heavily for this result.

On the downside, for as long as Gnonto was on the pitch, there was too much of the hit-to-him-and-hope routine. At least this time, Gracia was brave enough to substitute him with half an hour left. “It was the game we wanted,” Gracia said and, he admitted, the game he expected as he tried to piece a plan together while his visa was pending before Friday. Southampton were not set up to take risks. Leeds could do nothing but be patient. “We tried to be solid, compact, waiting for our moment,” Gracia said. “I think we did it.”

What is said more often than not about Gracia’s last Premier League job, at Watford in 2018 and 2019, is that it showed him to be tactically savvy and good at reading games, understanding what they would consist of and indulging pragmatism if pragmatism was called for. It was worth the slog against Southampton on the basis that Leeds had it in them to force the issue and were organised enough not to concede. Only once did Walcott look like getting in behind and testing Illan Meslier’s agility. Firpo recovered from a ball over his head to stick a foot in and send it behind.

Firpo’s demeanour as his goal went in, his puff-of-the-chest towards the West Stand at full-time and his move to conduct the South Stand as he soaked up acclaim, was the release by someone who cannot have enjoyed much of his career in England. He was the talent developed by Real Betis, the former Barcelona player, the left-back signing approved by Marcelo Bielsa in the summer of 2021.

Very little in his football — the defensive positioning, the interplay — helped put the pieces together or paint the picture as it was originally sold, creating only a confused image of form, injuries and suitability. But part of the confusion is that it seems impossible to have shone at Betis, attracted Barca and cleared Bielsa’s high bar for transfers without having the ability to cash those cheques. One swallow will not make a summer, for Firpo, Gracia or Leeds, but the entire club was desperate for a break and the summer feels less threatening than it did last weekend.

Over the past month, beatings at Leeds have been harsh. Marsch got stuck up a cul-de-sac and was sacked for his efforts. The club’s board invited a kicking and could hardly argue when it arrived. But in the foreground were players who had reached the point of needing to own what was happening on the pitch.

None of this was unconnected to them. From doom at Goodison Park to the tantalising idea of a resurgence in which Firpo comes good while Leeds stay up.

Stranger things have happened and Elland Road has seen most of them.