Leeds United 1-5 Crystal Palace: Please stop - The Square Ball 10/4/23

SECOND HALF SURPRISE

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

I know the cliche tells us that football is a game of fine margins, but is this really what will relegate Leeds United from the Premier League this season — Crystal Palace goalkeeper Sam Johnstone’s first good half for months, followed by Leeds’ worst fifteen minutes for weeks?

There should be more to it than that by the end of May, but the scale of United’s collapse after half-time and the clinical glee with which Palace took advantage obliterated the horizon. Javi Gracia was brought aboard Leeds to turn this sinking ship around. Here Leeds went overboard, with a lifeboat to cling to but no sight of hope.

It’d be tough to blame Gracia for this. New managers are getting shoved into dugouts all over the Premier League with clear instructions on what must be done, but their employers are not giving much thought about how. Gracia hasn’t had much time to figure things out. Since the players came back from international duty, those that didn’t return crocked faced Arsenal Saturday, Nottingham Forest Tuesday, Crystal Palace Sunday. We hoped for better than the three points Leeds got from the week; we hoped for less than the eleven goals they conceded. Gracia had to turn our hopes into results and, well, he tried.

Perhaps against Palace we discovered the limits of what a coach can do at this stage of a season. Leeds were excellent for the first half an hour, continuing the forceful attacking play that put such fear into Nottingham Forest. It was the same starting eleven and the same strong performance, and it should have brought more goals. What it brought, instead, was the same benchmark reached against Forest but in reverse, 1-1 only this time Leeds had scored first, and this time Luis Sinisterra couldn’t put them ahead before half-time. Instead, Leeds had let a lead slip just before the whistle.

Gracia had no answer for what happened next. For the first fifteen minutes of the second half Palace threw themselves at Leeds, and two quick goals were enough to settle the match. Nobody needed the two more that followed. It was 3-1 before Gracia could get any substitutes on, and his instructions never seemed to evolve beyond, lads, whatever you’re doing, please stop.

What else could he really do? Gracia isn’t a coach with a pre-season behind him spent instilling a philosophy, with the luxury of alternative gameplans that the players have had time to absorb and practice. He’s the bloke brought in to salvage things, and with three games a week there’s not time to do much more than set the players up for each match and hope plan A works. It’s probably not a coincidence that plan A was the same for Forest and Palace, simply to save time on explanations in training. Arsenal got a different plan, but Leeds were done at the Emirates once the Gunners got through that one, too. Each game now is a one shot affair and all Gracia can do is reload with different players and hope they hit the target.

A bit more target hitting in the first half against Palace might have meant a very different result. Leeds could have been three or four up before Pat Bamford did score in the twentieth minute, a glancing header in off the back post from Brenden Aaronson’s near post corner. Luis Sinisterra had shot just wide in the second minute, then tried to head in a low cross. Aaronson and Bamford both had chances, but something about the way they took them seemed off: Aaronson trying to backheel a cross, Bamford trying to hit the top corner from thirty yards, when both had simpler options. At 0-0, I was looking for more of the clinical style with which Sinisterra won the game on Tuesday night. Aaronson and Bamford, both deep into goalless troughs, seemed to be treating their chances as if they would get a hundred more. Johnstone was making saves, quite a change from the times when Leeds put four or five past him in goal for West Bromwich Albion. But Leeds were helping him look good, instead of ruining his afternoon.

Taking the lead felt final — for all his fluffing, this was Bamford’s 50th goal, and Luke Ayling dragged him and the rest of the team over to the bench to celebrate with the coaches. Palace had looked so beatable so far that this goal looked a sure sign of three points coming. I’m not sure to what extent Palace actually did get better, because when they were 3-1 up in the second half, their supporters’ attempts to olé their passes kept dying out because they couldn’t string more than two together at a time. And yet, somehow, they were playing Leeds off the park.

The equaliser came moments before half-time from a crossed free-kick, knocked down and nudged past Illan Meslier. Palace had threatened with a couple of chances like that, as part of a post-concession rally that seemed to send Leeds into their shell. They were still hiding there when Palace made a rampant start to the second half, and as if Michael Olise, Eberechi Eze, Odsonne Édouard and Jordan Ayew had only just come on the pitch, the Eagles’ dazzling attackers romped through on goal again and again. The two they scored in two minutes were devastating, but far from the only chances they had.

The mood at 3-1 was worry, and the only cavalry were Rodrigo, Wilf Gnonto and Rasmus Kristensen. Leeds’ attempts to get back into the game came absent any security at the back, and when Palace broke four-on-two to make it 4-1, the mood turned to anger, not least from Rodrigo, who booted the ball deep into the West Stand. At 5-1 it was becoming self-destruction, Wilf Gnonto getting booked, then injured, then going in late on James McArthur as if wanting a red; in a last absurdity, Weston McKennie came off worst in a tackle from Rodrigo as Eze went dancing around them, and spent several minutes lying alone in a heap while everyone ignored him. It had become everyone for themselves out there, players lost in their own worst thoughts, bad vibe waves reflected back by the plastic bucket seats in the blue stands around them.

Practically? After a good game against Forest and a good half here, McKennie and Marc Roca lost control in midfield, unable to stay dominant despite help from a lenient ref, unable to get the ball across increasing distances or through more crowded areas as they were forced back and further away from their attacking pals. That meant more giveaways in Leeds’ half, inviting more pressure on Leeds’ defenders, who could no longer cope with the individual magic of Palace’s attackers as well as they had in the first half. That’s a practical, tactical explanation.

But why did it not just get bad, but awful? One factor is as above — the limits to what Gracia can do to change a game, given the time he’s had with these players. Another is simply the season, and last season, and before, and how Leeds have been vulnerable to big defeats for more than two years and it’s not something that can be trained out of them overnight. It’s mentality, the easy switch into bad habits and negative behaviours. But it’s also not the final word on mentality. Because these players have been doing implosions since 2019 — that Easter against Wigan, and the play-off semi-final at home to Derby, set the tone — but they’ve been gritting their teeth and getting things done since then despite each and every collapse always feeling like the last. Somehow this lot are in the Premier League, still. Somehow they still could be next season. Somehow, if they are, that’s when things have to change.