West Brom 0-0 Leeds United: False promises — Square Ball 19/8/24
Written by: Rob Conlon
Leeds United played a game of football at West Brom on
Saturday and nothing happened. If you’re reading this match report to learn the
details, then you have my blessing to hit close and get on with the rest of
your day. That is all you need to know.
Aside from Daniel Farke, nobody was in the mood to find any
positives from such an eye-scratchingly ugly ninety minutes of what the
Championship has the brass neck to call ‘football’. But 48 hours on, I feel
just about capable of giving it a go. After conceding six goals in their
opening two games of the season, a clean sheet was a welcome relief for Leeds’
defence, marshalled by Pascal Struijk playing with the same calm authority that
he showed in the first half of last season before his campaign was ended by
injury. If we want to rinse that drop of optimism for all its worth then we can
hope this result proves the same palate cleansing reset of the 0-0 draw against
Norwich in the first leg of the play-off semi-final, just with a happier
ending.
The problem for Leeds was that, as well as being our best
defender, Struijk was also our most threatening attacker, with both sides
settling on set-pieces being the most likely route to a goal. It should come as
no surprise, really. In the last two weeks, Leeds have sold their two best and
most incisive forwards in Crysencio Summerville and Georginio Rutter, leaving a
team devoid of attacking flair and personality. In their absence, Joel Piroe
played himself back out of the team, Dan James returned to his timid worst, and
Mateo Joseph looked like a twenty-year-old making only his second league start
up against two experienced Champo meatheads.
Wilf Gnonto buzzed around trying his best, but seemed to be
desperately missing his bezzies who he used to have fun with. When Farke turned
to his bench, Brenden Aaronson came on for the final half an hour, completing
two passes and losing possession three times, which still might be enough to
pass his audition to replace Piroe in the team.
But here’s the thing — judging the game purely on the
result, maybe it wasn’t so bad. Last season Leeds went to the Hawthorns with
Summerville and Rutter in their team and not much more happened than on
Saturday, except West Brom scored and Leeds lost 1-0. Carlos Corberan will do
that to you, making it ever more unbelievable he was once a member of Marcelo
Bielsa’s coaching staff. It was six days after United had annihilated Ipswich
4-0 at Elland Road, but if you listened to the most unhinged corners of the
internet, there were already calls for Farke to be sacked. Leeds responded by
going unbeaten in their next fifteen league games, winning thirteen. In that
run they scored 33 goals and conceded only six, keeping ten clean sheets. A
seventeen-point gap to Leicester after that defeat at the Hawthorns was trimmed
to two.
This time, the tension online has translated to the
terraces, because Leeds can’t rely on Summerville or Rutter — or even Archie
Gray or Glen Kamara — to provide some inspiration to jumpstart our season.
While the mood after Saturday’s draw was compared to this time twelve months
ago, when a scratch side shorn of players on strike lost at Birmingham, it
reminded me more of this time twelve years ago, when whatever Leeds United were
doing on the pitch felt secondary to what was going on off it.
For all the ownership can insist there was nothing they
could do about Premier League clubs activating the release clauses of our best
players, the gloom hanging over the club like a cloud is entirely of their own
making. After losing to Southampton at Wembley, Paraag Marathe promised, ‘a
deliberate strategy to put the most competitive team on the pitch that we can,’
and justified the investment from Red Bull by saying it will lead to, “more
money to buy players and keep players. That’s all I care about — keeping the
squad as competitive as I can.” As things stand with the season underway and
the transfer window remaining open for just two more weeks, the finances have
improved but the squad that fell short of promotion last season has been
significantly weakened.
After Leeds beat Schalke in a friendly last month, Farke
said that he wanted to add a full-back and a central midfielder to his squad.
There is still no sign of either, yet his list of requirements has grown to
include a pair of attackers who are good enough to replace two of our most
important players. It’s why I can’t help but feel sympathy for him, and can’t
help but raise an eyebrow at some of the criticism directed towards his
management. His tactics don’t work and are too cautious? Last season Leeds won
more games and scored more goals than in any campaign since 2009/10. His system
relies on his most talented players producing moments of individual class? I
mean, isn’t that how football generally works? Marcelo Bielsa encouraged his
team to attack, attack, attack, but when it was Tyler Roberts doing the
attacking instead of Pablo Hernandez, or Helder Costa instead of Raphinha, it
didn’t work half as well.
So are we really expecting things to be different this time
around? It’s depressing that modern football boils down to this, but if Marathe
is sincere in wanting a competitive team then the answer is simple: if the
money is there, put down the can of Red Bull and get it spent. That way we’ll
be able to forget this draw with West Brom ever happened, and make sure we
still have a season that’s worth remembering.