A year on, despite promises and predictions, Leeds’ season is going to the wire again - The Athletic 18/4/23

By Phil Hay

There, in the right place at the right time, was what Leeds United could have won as Cody Gakpo side-footed in from no distance out. Gakpo was a transfer target that got away, not that it could be confidently claimed he alone would have turned their ugly season into a swan.

That ship sailed months ago, but the frantic dispatch of Victor Orta to the Netherlands before the closure of last summer’s transfer window goes into the breakdown of everything that has gone wrong for the club: deals that hit the wall, transfers that haven’t worked, flimsy collective quality, flimsy individual quality, VAR, the lot. All of it was laid bare as Gakpo tapped home, converting Liverpool’s first goal in a 6-1 dismemberment at Elland Road.

VAR should have intervened but didn’t, ignoring a Junior Firpo clearance that bounced off the arm of Trent Alexander-Arnold in the build-up. Leeds’ defence should have tracked Gakpo but didn’t, trailing a few yards behind as the Dutchman sank the easiest chance he will see in England. The club promised a thicker skin this season but didn’t find it, unable at this stage to even match the slow pace they showed last season. What was meant to be better looks statistically worse.

After 31 games last season, Leeds had seven wins, nine draws and 30 points. After 31 games this season, they have seven wins, eight draws and 29 points and the scary aspect of Liverpool dissecting them was Leeds looking as rattled a team as they had at any stage of their last fight to survive. Javi Gracia had his ducks in a row two short weeks ago, succeeding in injecting some organisation into the mess he inherited. But in the blink of an eye, there is chaos.

16 - Leeds have conceded 16 goals in their four Premier League games in April this year, eight more than any other side, and one more than they shipped in January, February and March combined (15 in 11 games). Foolish. pic.twitter.com/hwvwIiB3J1

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) April 17, 2023

There is a danger at times like this of retreating into the old-fashioned football mantra of backbones and guts, of players toughing it out, but in the circumstances, it has to be asked where the example or leadership is coming from on the pitch. Who is about to step up and who is about to make this right? Because in the absence of anyone taking a bolting horse by the bollocks, Leeds will get what is heading their way.

Punch resistance zero, their response to a 5-1 hammering by Crystal Palace melting into another abomination that much of Elland Road gave up on early again, all Gracia could say was that what he was seeing “is not enough”. “I don’t remember in my career if, in two games in a row, I conceded five, six goals,” he admitted. “It’s hard to manage.”

There can be no dispute at all that what set the thrashing in motion was a contentious 35th-minute finish from Gakpo, relying on a deflection off Alexander-Arnold’s left arm outside the box. No handball was the verdict, despite the evidence, and Leeds know by now that the last thing to save them will be VAR. Until that moment, the game had been toe-to-toe, competitive and hungry, with chances at both ends and good balance to it. But one goal was the cue for Leeds to wilt, as Leeds are prone to do.

Mohamed Salah smashed in a second and Luis Sinisterra’s chipped reply straight after half-time was washed away by a torrent of Liverpool finishes, their appetite as pronounced as Leeds’ withering resilience: Diogo Jota, Salah again, then Jota again and finally Darwin Nunez signing things off in the last minute. Jurgen Klopp’s squad still have it in them to look this good, especially if their hosts do what they can to help. Cheaply surrendered possession, weak tackling, poor tracking, Illan Meslier beaten by all but one shot on target; how else was it going to end?

🎙 Javi talks to the media following tonight's clash at Elland Road pic.twitter.com/eub0L00sOi

— Leeds United (@LUFC) April 17, 2023

COVID-19 made a mess of the Premier League table last season, knocking it out of kilter through postponements, but even allowing for stacks of games in hand elsewhere, Leeds at this juncture 12 months ago looked peculiarly stable and almost safe. Watford, as the division stood, were 18th and eight points back. Norwich City, at the foot of it, were long gone. Burnley were catching up on fixtures but had only won three, so very few people in Lancashire were ready to risk their mortgages on them. For the briefest of moments, there was assurance in Leeds, a club oblivious to the dogs at their heels and the close shave waiting for them.

The comparison now — a point worse off, a cushion of just two to Nottingham Forest in 18th — will warn them against thinking there is a rapid or comfortable way out of this. It should warn the club that the creeping death they felt before Brentford away last season might revisit them again, dragging them down the same rabbit hole of Russian roulette where nine months of toil comes down to one last, desperate weekend. Gracia cannot be drawn into talking about the table, except to say that he will have a glass of wine on his if everything works out. He will be ready for it and more if Leeds succeed in being the least bad of a group of four or five teams.

The burning question is whether they are better placed to cling on than they were 12 months ago. The gap protecting them from third bottom is much smaller and, on that basis, they will have to ship lactic acid to the finish. They also have no one quite like Raphinha, a player who could do it on his own if all else went wrong, but the depth of the squad is different.

Gracia should not find himself, as Jesse Marsch did last April, away at Arsenal with seven academy footballers on the bench. He also has a slightly gentler run of matches ahead of him than the spate that forced Leeds to contend with Arsenal, Chelsea and champions Manchester City in the space of 12 days. It is straw-clutching and a pile of calculations on paper, exact science lacking the context of how unpredictable football can be at this time of year, but it is also the reality. Somewhere down the line, and soon, the truth will out.

Gracia spoke after last night’s rout about “seven cup finals”, the surest sign that Leeds are hurtling towards the point of now or never. They were supposed to have left that quicksand behind them. Andrea Radrizzani predicted confidently that this wouldn’t happen again, but here the club are with deja vu, wagons circling and arrows in their hats, destined for another trip to the wire.