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.