The last first touch, with Jackie Harrison - Square Ball 17/8/23
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Written by: Rob Conlon
When Leeds were relegated, it felt like Jackie Harrison
would be one of the first players sold back to a Premier League club. Leicester
had already tried to buy him – and Andrea Radrizzani had already tried to sell
him – in January. Newcastle and Tottenham have regularly been linked with
making a move.
Harrison was one of the key players the 49ers Enterprises
were determined to keep, but who knows whether that was before they were aware
of the widespread release clauses across the squad – even, in Jackie’s case,
when he’d only been given a new deal in April, when Leeds were two points above
the relegation zone.
In truth, the only reason Harrison hasn’t left sooner is
likely to have been his hip injury. On Monday, he joined Everton. He was one of
the few players Leeds could have made a profit on to buy themselves some FFP
wiggle room, but no: it’s a season-long loan, like everyone else, except with
the caveat that Everton will ‘push to make the move permanent in due course’,
presumably when they have their own FFP wiggle room.
Like most things in football, it reeks of stupidity, right
down to Aston Villa supposedly trying to hijack the deal only to realise he’s
injured, which everyone has known for weeks. Good work all round, fellas.
How it started
To put Harrison’s time at Leeds into context, the day after
he joined the club on loan from Manchester City, Leeds loaned Hadi Sacko to Las
Palmas. Harrison was the perfect example of how it seemed just as likely that
the decision to appoint Marcelo Bielsa as manager could be a spectacular
failure rather than an era-defining success. Jackie made his name thanks to the
quirk of being a lad from Stoke playing at New York City, but upon returning to
England he was afforded all of 48 minutes under Tony Pulis on loan at
Middlesbrough. Was this really the guy to help us end a decade and a half of
Football League purgatory?
His first season at Leeds ended with a beautiful cross for
Kemar Roofe to take a 1-0 lead into the second leg of the play-off semi-final
against Derby, but we all know what happened then. When Leeds were planning how
to attack a second promotion challenge with Bielsa, they acknowledged they
needed to get better value out of their loans, and most supporters – myself
included – preferred Jack Clarke to Jack Harrison.
How it went
Jack Clarke wasn’t better than Jack Harrison. The summer
after the play-off defeat set a theme for Harrison’s time at Leeds, as he spent
his holidays grafting to get better, returning to become a cornerstone of
Bielsa’s team. Like Bill Ayling and Mat Klich, Jackie earned a reputation for
hard running that meant his technical touches of class were often overlooked.
Such is the nature of football, despite Harrison always
striving to get the best out of himself, a section of the fanbase always wanted
more. Jackie Harrison can only be as good as the best Jackie Harrison, and that
was pretty bloody good: under Bielsa, only Mat Klich played more, only Pat
Bamford scored more, and only Pablo Hernandez created more. No player created
more goals for Leeds in our three years back in the Premier League, only
Bamford and Rodrigo scored more. For someone so regularly criticised as
inconsistent, Harrison has been one of Leeds’ most reliable players. He played
in every game of the promotion campaign, has played through injury, and
bookended Leeds’ time in the Premier League by scoring our first and last goals
in the competition.
While Harrison was still waiting for his first goal or
assist after a slow start to the 2021/22 season, Bielsa neatly described how I
felt about him:
“Harrison will continue to shine or will shine again in
proportion to the faculties that he has, and it’s my job to put him in
situations in the game where he’s able to shine and to make him as important as
I feel that he is. Of course any question that invites public criticism for my
players, I reject.”
And he has a first touch I want to snog.
Best moment
Honourable mentions go to:
Every time he controlled a football
Scoring a hat-trick at West Ham on the last great day under
Marcelo Bielsa
Sprinting the length of the pitch to get on the end of a
classic Bielsa counter-attack and score a late winner at Reading
Mugging off Trent Alexander-Arnold for that opening Premier
League goal at Anfield
Celebrating the winner in the 5-4 at Birmingham by looking
as exhausted as we all felt:
But it’s Brentford, innit? I’m glad this gets misremembered
as the goal that kept Leeds up – we’d have stayed up with a draw anyway –
because during the run-in Harrison had played while battling against his own
limitations. I lost count of the number of times I saw him hunched over by the
touchline, crippled with frustration that whatever he was trying to do seemed
to be going wrong, so it was fitting that Harrison scored the goal that lifted
a weight off the shoulders of the entire club.
Talking about that goal, Harrison said:
“People cried that day, it meant that much. We were almost
rock bottom. The home game against Aston Villa (a 0-3 defeat) was the epitome
of that. Fans were chanting for Marcelo and not everyone was on the same page.
We had new tactics and new ways of playing. It was tough.
“So to survive meant everything. I have watched that clip
back from the Brentford game so many times. Players were on their knees. People
were crying while we were actually still playing.
“As we went back to the kick-off after my goal, Junior
(Firpo) was playing behind me. I had never seen him cry before. Never. But he
had a tear in his eye. I had to tell him to concentrate on defending!”
I imagine he had to tell Firpo that a lot.
Worst moment
Twitter never dealt well with every time he overhit a cross
or whispered with Brenden Aaronson at a set-piece before failing to beat the
first man. I was more frustrated with Andrea Radrizzani sending him for a
medical at Leicester on deadline day in January before he was told by someone
else to come back to Leeds, when all Harrison could say afterwards was: “The
situation opened my eyes to a lot of things that goes on behind the scenes but
at the end of the day it’s how you focus back in as a player.”
But none of that was as embarrassing as having to come off
the pitch after a defeat at Arsenal and reveal:
“[Marsch] showed a quote from Gandhi before the game about
having belief and that’s the most important thing for us. Just having belief
and everything else comes after that, staying together and the tactics and
everything like that.”
What might have been
The main criticism of Harrison seems to be that he should
have just been better, but I’m not sure what else he really could have done
about that. Maybe he’d have been helped if Leeds bought some better players for
him to play alongside, or if Leeds never sacked the manager who made him this
good in the first place. Or maybe we should have just sold him to Newcastle
when we had the chance, at least then he wouldn’t be joining Everton on loan.
Rate the goodbye
The PR dribble of goodbyes from the likes of Marc Roca and
Brenden Aaronson have felt incredibly insincere, but Harrison took his time
before posting his farewell to Instagram, presumably penning a heartfelt ode to
his five years in Leeds. Errrr:
Thank you @leedsunited fans. We have shared so many amazing
memories over the last 5 years. I will keep an eye on the results and wish you
nothing but the best for the season ahead. Always MOT.
I genuinely admire the brevity. No bullshit. ‘I will keep an
eye on the results’ might be the most Jackie Harrison thing he’s ever written.
Where they’re going
Sam Allardyce liked Jackie Harrison, so Sean Dyche will love
him. I’m not so sure what Jackie will make of Dyche, though. I hope they get
relegated.