Fulham 2-0 Leeds United: Unfinished - The Square Ball 1/3/23


IN THE NET

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

What do you say to a football team that can’t score goals? Please? Javi Gracia plans to “analyse why today we didn’t finish well,” which will mean replaying clips of Leeds United players air-kicking loose balls two yards away from the goal line or aiming shots over the Thames to Putney, and “try to work on it in training sessions.” That means between now and Saturday’s return up the road to Chelsea Leeds players will gain the confidence that comes from bagging goal after goal in the Thorp Arch onion nets. Hopefully. If they move the goalies out the way. And make the posts bigger. And stand them on the goal line with the ball. And the coaches hold their little ankles with their hands as they pull their feet back and swing them forwards through the ball. ‘That’s how you do it! Yay!’

Finishing is one of football’s mysteries. Marcelo Bielsa, whose creative Leeds teams were exceptional fluffers of chances, used to talk as if it was essentially untrainable: the strikers had to ‘arrive in condition to score’ and, after that, they either did or they didn’t. Eddie Nketiah, a loanee from Arsenal with a tapping in knack, was kept on the bench because his play outside the box could impede the way chances were created for other players, who couldn’t finish like him. Howard Wilkinson allowed himself some superpower over Lee Chapman, pointing out that the big striker’s scoring rates went up when he played for Wilko at Sheffield Wednesday or Leeds, but that was about playing to Chappy’s strengths, not helping him to score from six yards. Which, sometimes, Chapman did not, but Wilkinson would not criticise him. “If you score as many as he does, you’re going to miss a few,” he said, after one glaring miss. “Some players in this game never missed any, did they?”

Some players in Fulham vs Leeds United played as if they’d never scored any. They were the ones wearing the black shirts and orange shorts. Fulham, meanwhile, went through to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup by pinging two worldies past Illan Meslier and that was basically that. They say mistakes at this level will always get punished, but this was only the FA Cup and the gaps between crime and punishment were harsh on Leeds.

Midway through the first half, Tyler Adams put a square ball to Marc Roca nearer to João Palhinha, who seized it, sized things up, and curved the ball with painful beauty around Robin Koch and Meslier, into the top corner. Weirdos who get a weird kick out of weirdly criticising Meslier will moan about him being seven yards off his line, and if we want to go around picking faults, well, I just told you about Adams’ pass. But Palhinha still had to have the quality to take advantage of the layout, and it doesn’t seem fair that a midfield player at the Fulham Football Club should have so much.

Likewise, Manor Solomon, midway through the second half, used Aleksandar Mitrović for a wall pass through United’s awkward right side of Rasmus Kristensen and Luke Ayling, then curved his shot around a diagonal line in off the far post. Meslier, in the right place, dived at full stretch. No.

Losing to two such beauties only highlighted the beastly burden of Leeds’ players in front of goal. More positively, it showed that Leeds were better again defensively: last time we played these guys we let them score three, but even with Kristensen at centre-back all the danger from Mitrović was kept outside the box. There was a small significant moment at the start of the second half when Wilf Gnonto had dropped deep and the ball dropped to him as Leeds cleared Fulham pressure, and he did not rush forward on the counter. He held the ball, let the two teams return to shape, then passed back to Robin Koch. This patience didn’t hinder Leeds’ attacking. They had sixteen shots, more than twice Fulham’s number, and put over seventeen crosses to their twelve. We saw a little when Michael Skubala took over, and a lot since Javi Gracia arrived, to suggest this team has more grace and gears than it has been showing for the last twelve months.

Goals, though. Score some goals, lads. Georginio Rutter did score one, putting in a rebound from a corner, but referee Chris Kavanagh was already whistling sharply for a very soft push by Weston McKennie as the ball was flicked on. Disallowing that goal felt harsh at the time and might ultimately have been tragic. If goalscoring comes from confidence, “a cycle” as Gracia put it, scoring that goal could have lifted the pressure from beleaguering Leeds. Rutter had another good go, after Gnonto did some of his twisty best, reaching a chip and heading it back towards goal, off the base of the post. Nothing was gained from that, either, and in the second half, at 2-0 down, frantic failure became the night’s theme.

Rutter departed by that point, replaced by Pat Bamford. The new striker’s first start didn’t answer much about him, as Leeds’ determined defensive shape left him too much alone too often and his pressing lacked the conviction Bamford brings. “I think he can play better as a second forward or with two,” Gracia said afterwards, “in my opinion that’s the best position for Georginio.” This raises a question or two about why so much was spent on Rutter as a rival to our main number nine, if he isn’t. The logic is that variety is the spice of life, and what would be the point of an array of identical strikers if they were all fit? In an ideal world, if Rutter can’t find a way, Bamford can come on to cause a different kind of problem, with Rodrigo as an alternative — it gives the coach tactical variations instead of hammering down the same old door minute after minute, game after game. But Leeds would be really blessed if all their forward options had one thing in common: they could score lots of goals.

Meanwhile, not even Junior Firpo could save Leeds this time, bursting into the penalty area trying to win a stoppage time penalty. If there was ever a sign that the romance of the FA Cup is dead, that was it. Leeds have given more bother to its later stages than for a long time, and Javi Gracia was even tempted into reminiscing about the feeling of reaching the final with Watford, how he wanted to share that experience with Leeds fans. We were probably doomed from that moment.

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