Leeds United 1-6 Liverpool: Who thought this was a good idea? - The Square Ball 18/4/23

DEEP THINKING

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

There were two good bits. Leeds United’s goal just after half-time was one, when they threatened to tread on Liverpool’s nerves and fight into this game from 2-0 down.

The other bit was after 25 minutes of the first half. Liverpool had kept the ball between 75-80% of the time until then but suddenly, after a dangerous mistake by Jackie Harrison, a game of football started. Liverpool threw players at the chance but couldn’t take it, and Leeds sensed an opportunity to counter. Liverpool won the ball back, almost made a chance, and by the time Leeds tackled them, both teams had lost their shape and United could try breaking again. This kept on for two or three minutes, two teams off their balance, slugging it out, end to end although more at the Leeds end. The score was 0-0, and this bit was fun. Leeds had barely touched the ball, but there were hopeful signs that Liverpool were losing patience, playing themselves into errors.

Fifteen minutes later the score was 2-0 to Liverpool and it was clear how Javi Gracia was trapped. The Leeds coach needed a reaction from his players after they fainted beneath the first whiff of flair from Crystal Palace last weekend. But they had to get that reaction against Liverpool. Not the conquering Liverpool of recent seasons, but an angrier Liverpool for that. Leeds stood off them, trying to stay compact and defend well, hoping for enough of those unbalanced moments that they could score. For a while, it was okay: Liverpool had the ball but few chances. But Liverpool’s dominance became its own factor. The United players conceded possession long before they conceded a goal, as if they were frightened of trying to play out through red shirts. Any passing move was swarmed upon anyway, so why not cut that part and boot the ball straight to them? The next logical step, after giving the ball to Liverpool, was not getting the ball back from them in the first place.

The reason Gracia preferred this to the other option, of taking the game forward and bravely attacking Liverpool, was obvious after the visitors were helped into the lead by the VAR deciding Trent-Alexander Arnold was right to elbow Junior Firpo’s clearance forward to Mo Salah, who helped him set up Cody Gakpo to score at the back post. A goal down, now Leeds did attack Liverpool, and as such it was less than four minutes before Salah was in United’s penalty area, hammering the ball between Illan Meslier and his near post. Perhaps Gracia had been right, telling the players to be cautious, but the game wasn’t going to allow him that. And the idea that Leeds had to be careful for fear of Liverpool taking revenge on us for their underwhelming season doesn’t hold up because, in that case, what was our problem with Crystal Palace?

I still don’t know what other options Gracia had, though, apart from turning to Andrea Radrizzani, Victor Orta and Angus Kinnear in the directors’ box behind him and screaming at them, demanding to know what the hell they’ve been doing for the last two years. They, at 1-6, caught sight of themselves on TV and began mugging and miming their angst and frustration for the cameras, as if they were hapless victims of some vengeful god rather than reapers of their own harvest. It was grimly diverting, during this game, to wonder what these bozos wanted with Cody Gakpo back in August. A good player, yes, and given they’ve since bought Georginio Rutter for a similar amount, a good price. But what in the deep dark hell of the well beneath the pitch were they expecting Gakpo to do for the team we have? Did they imagine him chasing Rasmus Kristensen’s hectic bunts? Standing idly as Brenden Aaronson fluttered by him on the breeze? Waiting on the defender’s shoulder for Marc Roca to turn? Or would he have ended up like his bargain alternative Wilf Gnonto, sitting on the bench alongside all the other hybrid striker/wingers the squad is stuffed with, some of whom might be of some use if the board had paid the same attention to midfielders and full-backs, instead of adding to its slapdash stack of flimsy resale potential with Rutter in January.

It’s painful to compare what we have now to Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds. Awkward, too, given we lost 3-0 and 6-0 to these same opponents last season. But if we date Bielsa’s Leeds, you know, the good one, the one we loved, to the 9th placed Premier League finish that led the board to start talking to Jesse Marsch about replacing him, then the difference from then to now is painful to think about, and sorrowful, remembering how we had no choice but watching that season on television. Under Bielsa the team weren’t frightened to lose to teams like Liverpool because they were confident of beating the rest. The fans have not forgotten, chanting Gaetano Berardi’s name while the score was 0-0, yearning for his attitude to save the players from themselves. Berardi made mistakes, significant ones. But he never let that stop him doing what he could to do things right. Now the players look terrified of themselves and of what they might do wrong.

Somewhere in Elland Road, probably in too many places, we’ll find Radrizzani’s five word motto for Leeds: ‘ambition, pride, family, graft, innovation’. Ambition has disintegrated to desperately hoping for 17th place again. There’s nothing to be proud of in the last two games. Family? Should mean more than trying to name a training ground after someone when they’re clearly not interested. Graft? If that refers to how it feels watching Leeds, then yes. And we’re certainly seeing innovative new ways of pissing a gift horse up the wall, if only as a new thing in cliches.

Somewhere out of those five garbling words came a concept like Rasmus Kristensen at one end of the pitch, trying to get the ball to Charles De Ketelaere at the other, while Jesse Marsch stood on the touchline between them enquiring after their family’s health. How any of this was ever supposed to overcome the tactical and technical developments surrounding Leeds in an ever more ruthlessly sophisticated Premier League is beyond me. The compression in the bottom half of the table this season is not a sign of increased competition but that more teams are being cut adrift and collecting at the bottom, being joined by Chelsea and Spurs and even Liverpool, while technocrats prosper at Brighton and Brentford and the top two stride away towards 90 point seasons. Leeds, meanwhile, inspired by the owner’s insistence on graft, aim to put a shift in. The contrast with Liverpool, a great team having a bad season, was stark, not just in the result or the squad value, but quite simply the way that Alexander-Arnold, the way full-backs have been doing recently, went to play in midfield. I watched those fluid movements, then looked at Leeds, locked rigidly into their 4-4-2, gritting their teeth and hoping for something to save them from top level football.

But this will just have to be enough to get results against Fulham, Leicester, Bournemouth, West Ham. It will just have to. And then whatever comes next comes next. This performance was so poor there’s nothing I can say about it that you can’t think up for yourself. The terror lies in the lack of thought inside the corridors at Elland Road. There has been more than enough hard thinking in the stands, particularly around the time the season ticket prices went up for this. By the end of this game the goals against hardly registered, they were just something that kept happening, like when the breeze stiffens and you hear the sound of a distant funfair. Oh yeah, that’s today in town isn’t it, the Liverpool scoring loads of goals thing. Sitting in the stands at Elland Road, watching the last half an hour, you could almost forget what was happening. Was that five, now? Six? Six is a lot. My oh my.

After the end of the game, for his own reasons I guess, Brenden Aaronson wandered from the bench and embarked on his own slow lap of the pitch, long after the other players were heading for the tunnel. Except for Tyler Adams in his big jumper, who waited for him in the centre circle. It took a while. Aaronson moved as if in a depressed stupor but seemed determined to put himself through it. It was the opposite of Raphinha’s grateful march on his knees at Brentford last season. There was a bright moment when some small children at the front of the Kop convinced him, by waving and pleading, to walk over to them and throw his shirt to them. One kid caught it, and the little group all celebrated, bouncing up and down and cheering, delighted to have a moment with and a gift from their favourite (now, this must have cemented it) player. Then Aaronson resumed his sad stroll, and a little further along the Kop, some old men a few rows back gestured at him to fuck off. That’s the paradoxical life of a footballer, a young god worshipped just for existing with nowhere to hide when he can’t do things right. None of this is Aaronson’s fault, really. He is who he is, he’s 22, he’s playing football the best way he knows how. But we’re pinning our hopes on him. Victor Orta is pinning his reputation on him. Andrea Radrizzani is pinning millions of takeover dollars on him. Why did anyone think this was a good idea?