Leeds United credit debate on hold after Javi Gracia Elland Road discovery - Graham Smyth's Verdict - YEP 26/2/23
Javi Gracia already had an inkling but now he knows for certain that Elland Road is the place to be when Leeds United win.
By Graham Smyth
A period of 112 days separated this club from its last
Premier League victory but beating Southampton after what Gracia described as a
single day together gives him optimism for what they can achieve.
How much credit Leeds United get for beating Southampton, a
team you have to beat to have any right to Premier League status, is perhaps a
debate for another day because the job was as simple as Gracia's. He's got to
keep Leeds up, they had to beat the Saints.
The Saints were poor and so too was the game for large
parts, facts that did not matter one jot at full-time as Junior Firpo, the
unlikeliest of heroes, pumped his fists to elicit guttural roars from the South
Stand, but facts all the same.
Comfortably the worst side to take on the Whites this
season, arguably in all competitions, Southampton's plan was difficult to
decipher. When Roméo Lavia, their best operator by a distance, got on the ball
he would look up to see white shirts. The Saints had no width and even the last
resort - sticking it in the air for 6ft 7ins Paul Onuachu - didn't work, with
Robin Koch outjumping the giant time and time again.
📢 Ratings, get your ratings! #lufc https://t.co/Tk2JHrNnVD
— Leeds United News (@LeedsUnitedYEP) February 25, 2023
Gracia's plan for Leeds was simple but ultimately effective.
He set them up in a 4-4-2, Brenden Aaronson acting as a second striker in
support of Patrick Bamford. The wingers played as wingers, Willy Gnonto and
Jack Harrison hugging the touchlines to give Leeds proper width when they had
the ball. Full-backs Firpo and Luke Ayling got up in support too, that quartet
looking to get balls into the box and bodies to the byline.
There was patience in possession. If the pass wasn't on, the
instruction was evidently to hold onto it and shift the focus of the attack
from left to right or vice versa. It wasn't Bielsaball, it lacked quality and
an incisive instinct at the end of phases of play, but nor was it the hasty,
hurried stuff of more recent times and what it did was deprive Southampton of
possession with which to do much of anything. It looked suspiciously like Leeds
were controlling a game.
What they just couldn't do, with all that possession, was
create something clear cut to show their superiority on the scoreline. There
were promising moments, half-chances like the two-on-one break for Weston
McKennie and Aaronson, the former's pass behind the latter spurning the
opportunity. McKennie sent a shot well over, with Gavin Bazunu well off his
line. Bamford connected with a cross and spooned the ball into the keeper's
hands. Harrison whipped one wide. Yet at half-time all the promise could yield was
a goalless stalemate.
After the break Southampton enjoyed their best spell of
possession and ended it with a cross to the back post, Firpo blocking Onuachu's
route.
It was at this point that Gracia made his first change and a
big call it was. Off came Gnonto, who had just won his latest duel with Stuart
Armstrong and a free-kick in a dangerous position to boot, and on came
Crysencio Summerville.
Fresh legs were all the new manager was after, seeing
nothing wrong with any individual performance, yet he almost got so much more
when Aaronson picked out Summerville in the area and he shaped to shoot, a
defender blocking the effort and the headlines.
Summerville tried again, dancing to the byline on the left
and shooting, right footed, straight into Bazunu's arms.
Once more he went to the byline, turning out of the corner
and defensive pressure to somehow thread a pass to Harrison, whose backheel put
Firpo in space and the left-back's right-foot finish, his first ever Premier
League goal, brought the house down.
For a club in any goal off any backside to claim any kind of
win territory, it was manna from heaven and Elland Road lost itself in a moment
of sheer bliss. The rendition of Marching on Together that followed was
thunderous, a fanbase rediscovering how good it feels to celebrate together, a
new manager discovering how good they sound. “I could see before coming, but to
live it at home or to live it inside [the stadium] is different,” he said
later.
It could have got even better - Summerville raced in on a
two-on-one alongside Harrison, backed himself and shot agonisingly wide - but
it didn't need to because there was little danger of it getting any worse. The
closest Southampton came to spoiling the party was a corner that Armel
Bella-Kotchap met, only to direct out to the far side for a Leeds throw.
The rest of the final minutes were played in the right area,
Leeds once more in control and well worth the three points at the final
whistle.
Firpo whipped up the crowd at one end of the pitch, Max
Wober and Luke Ayling did the same at the other and Elland Road, for the first
time in a long time, was united in joy.
In the cold light of the post game press conference Gracia
called it just a step, but an important one, a necessary one. If it's true that
you don't get a second chance to make a first impression, Gracia could do
little more, with a team struggling for confidence and bereft of results, than
mastermind a win and a clean sheet on his managerial debut.
All the fans require from now until the summer is what
Gracia and his team gave them on Saturday. Just score and win. Clean sheets
will make life easier but the results will be king. All they want is to stay
up.
Gracia's commitment to being at Elland Road was highlighted
by CEO Angus Kinnear in the matchday programme, in a favourable comparison with
other candidates for the job - an interesting line given the club's lingering
hopes of possibly attracting one of those in the summer.
Between now and then however, the reward for Gracia, if he
shows himself to be the right man for the job, is Elland Road itself. When the
going is good, there are few better places to be.