Leeds United 3-0 Luton Town: After the storm — Square Ball 29/11/24

No skidmarks

Written by: Rob Conlon

Five minutes into the game, my dad turned to me and asked whether Pascal Struijk was playing left-back. Struijk was indeed standing by the left touchline, with Manor Solomon ahead of him on the left wing, begging the question, where the hell was Sam Byram? Eventually, we spotted him: he was spearheading Leeds’ attack as a centre-forward. Obviously.

For all the frustrations and criticisms that Leeds are too cautious under Daniel Farke, his players sure do have a licence for adventure. Although that didn’t make what happened a few minutes later any less surprising. We knew Byram was a good footballer from the moment he scored his first ever goal for United as a teenager most of us had never previously heard of, skinning two Oxford defenders before chipping their goalkeeper in a League Cup tie way back in 2012. Really though, Sam, a scissor kick? Where the fucking hell did that come from?

Byram returned to Leeds last year a very different player to the one who left the club in 2016 destined for the Premier League, not that you can tell by looking at him. Having always been expected to reach the Premier League and maybe even the England squad either with Leeds or without, his ascent was swiftly curtailed by injuries that meant he became more accustomed to the physio’s table than a football pitch, stuck in the monotony of never-ending rehab. Having injured his knee during a loan spell at Nottingham Forest, he spent six weeks stuck in bed using a machine that helped him bend his leg for six hours a day. Aside from bingeing Netflix and any DVD box set he could get his hands on, his only relief from the “mind-numbing” daily existence was treating himself to twenty minutes up and down the corridor of his apartment building in a wheelchair. Once he’d watched all the Sons of Anarchy he could take, he started learning the piano to keep his mind alert, even though all he wanted to do was kick a football around with his teammates. As he told The Athletic in 2020: “You feel almost a sense of worthlessness.”

Which makes Byram’s revival at Leeds all the more joyous. Ever since he’s returned to Elland Road, Byram has proved over and over that Leeds are lucky to have a player so dependable and proficient. They aren’t the sexiest of adjectives to describe a footballer, but as qualities they make him worth his weight in gold, especially when every now and again he pulls off a finish with such class it would make Allan Clarke blush.

After the storm in Swansea, Byram’s early goal helped ease everyone’s blood pressure, albeit it still needed Struijk to match his full-back’s acrobatics with a goalline clearance as Leeds briefly malfunctioned. Joe Rothwell and Ao Tanaka momentarily let their grip of midfield slip, the defence allowed Victor Moses to run out of their sights, and Illan Meslier’s approach to smothering the chance resembled a dog slowly dragging its arse along a carpet. Still, it was worth it if only to see Struijk wipe the skidmark from the clean sheet with an overhead kick.

Leeds scoring a second goal before half-time was equally important, proving they’d got the nonsense of South Wales out of their system and weren’t going to be lulled by their own dominance. Even if the good vibes of Joel Piroe lashing in a rebound from Struijk’s header at a corner(!) wasn’t enough to placate two Leeds fans having a spaghetti western bar brawl in the concourse of the North East corner at half-time. People get their thrills in different ways, although personally I’ll always prefer a couple of bicycle kicks over a punch-up.

A much calmer night made it easier to appreciate just how easy Leeds are making almost every game look this season. Reducing Leeds’ football to the numbers can suck the fun out of so much of what the Peacocks do well, but the stats remain startling: 76% possession, twenty shots to seven, 36 touches in Luton’s penalty area compared to their five in Leeds’. Under Farke, Leeds are doing this every week — even if it can’t safeguard us against our annual defeat at Millwall — but that doesn’t make it normal.

If the second half was threatening to leave some supporters cold, then Dan James came off the bench to make sure nobody — apart from Angus Kinnear — could have any complaints. Jayden Bogle’s pass was the rabbit for Leeds’ greyhound to chase, and James made his lob over Luton goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski look far easier than it was in reality. On a night devoted to Gary Speed on the anniversary of his passing, James ended it by becoming the first Welsh player to score twenty goals for Leeds since Speed himself — and brought to mind Howard Wilkinson stealing a phrase from Ernest Hemingway to describe his own precocious Welsh winger after one of his most famous goals: “With confidence comes composure and, if you like, grace under pressure.”