Ao Tanaka & six more great overshadowed Leeds United goals — Square Ball 8/1/25
Stupid club
Written by: Chris McMenamy
As Leeds trailed 1-0 going into the second half at Hull, I
was convinced I knew how this was going. Leeds would have ten chances, take
none of them and…Jesus Christ, Ao Tanaka, what have you done?!
It took less than a minute for our generational talent to
score an aesthetically beautiful goal from about twenty yards. The deadly
strike, the dipping ball that evaded the goalkeeper’s grasp, it was just
perfect. What a way to score your first Leeds goal. But will it be remembered?
Probably not.
Rather than focus on that, em, thing that happened on
Saturday, why don’t we use it as an opportunity to remember some of Leeds
United’s great goals forgotten because of, well, Leeds being Leeds.
Luke Ayling — Scum 5-1 Leeds, August 2021
Full crowds were back in football grounds as the Premier
League season kicked off. Scum led 1-0 at half-time, but Ayling had other
ideas. Stuart Dallas laid the ball into his path and Ayling smashed it into the
top corner from 25 yards. Knee slide. Air guitar. Leeds fans celebrating in the
home end. United are back. Hello, hello.
It was 3-1 to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s brave boys only five
minutes later. I missed the goal as I was at a wedding, but was immediately
informed of it, and shown a stream of the match on a phone that read ‘MUN 3-1
LEE’. Ah, cheers pal, save your data. Another two Scum goals made sure the
Ayling strike was condemned to purgatory in LUFC screamer history.
Stuart Dallas — Scum 6-2 Leeds, December 2020
What is it with Leeds scoring screamers at Old Trafford? Are
they all trying to be Mel Sterland? They’ll never be the Flying Pig, not least
because he wouldn’t be seen losing 6-1 at Castle Greyskull like Stuart Dallas
was.
This was a dark day and Stu’s goal might be one forgotten
through the much needed repression of bad memories. Scott McTominay scored
twice in the opening three minutes. It was 4-0 after 37 minutes. Dan James
scored the sixth, the Little Scum Bastard.
It was a dark day right before the COVID Christmas of 2020
and going four goals down to that lot really didn’t do it for me. I’m pretty
sure I laid down in a dark room for all of half-time, which was probably the
most rational option I could have gone for.
Anyway, Dallas’ goal. After Roddy from Flushed Away — AKA
Bruno Fernandes — scored to make it 6-1, Leeds went right back to it, just as
Marcelo Bielsa intended. Attack, press and, failing that, concede. And go
again.
Jack Harrison intercepted a goal-kick, played the ball
upfield to Raphinha — God, remember him? — and the ball ended up at Dallas’
feet, so he curled it into the top corner. Of all the ‘wish the fans were
there’ moments from 2020/21, this was not one of them. Sorry for making you
think about Scott McTominay again.
Bradley Johnson — Leeds 1-3 Arsenal, January 2011
Not another FA Cup third round loss. To be fair, it was a
replay. Leeds had drawn at the Emirates after Robert Snodgrass’ penalty was
cancelled out by Cesc Fabregas scoring his own spot-kick in injury time, given
by ref Phil Dowd after minimal contact and an unusually long wait to make a
decision. But hey, I’m not bitter!
Arsenal had underestimated Leeds, so they started Samir
Nasri and Laurent Koscielny in the replay just to make sure they didn’t get
embarrassed by the likes of Paul Connolly and Andy O’Brien. They took an early
lead through Nasri and made it 2-0 just after the half-hour mark. It looked
like game over.
In the 37th minute, a wild Bradley Johnson appeared,
trotting into the path of a Jonny Howson pass, clearly intent on putting his
foot through the ball. This type of thing happened a lot, and usually ended
with his shot going over the South Stand and through Graveley’s window, but no.
Big Brad hit that ball like it owed him money, sending it flying past Wojciech
Szczesny and into the top corner.
The goal sent Leeds into half-time with a modicum of hope,
and they stayed in the game until Arsene Wenger introduced both Cesc Fabregas
and Robin van Persie in the 71st minute, with the latter scoring shortly after
to kill the game. Not fair on us, nor Bradley Johnson.
Carlton Palmer — Wimbledon 2-4 Leeds, September 1995
Possibly the most forgotten good goal in our history, and
not because Leeds were being Leeds at the time. Quite the opposite, actually.
Tony Yeboah was on a rampage, having scored That Goal against Liverpool a month
earlier, only two days after he’d scored a thunderous half-volley against West
Ham. His goal in this game is arguably his best ever, but it came after Carlton
Palmer scored what I’m going to assume is his best ever goal.
It is the least Carlton Palmer that Carlton Palmer has ever
looked, which is to say, good. I’m not sure if it’s the crab-like control, or
the wonderful curling effort, but there’s something so mesmerising about this
goal.
There is nothing to suggest that Palmer might score when he
picks the ball up from Gary McAllister. He can barely control the ball,
evidenced by the nine or ten touches it takes to get it out from under his
feet. That he still manages to cut back onto his right and curl a powerful shot
past Paul Heald is amazing. That was the first goal of a 4-2 win for Leeds and
I wonder if Heald thought Palmer’s powerful effort was the toughest shot he’d
face that day.
Palmer suffered enough being the man that ‘replaced’ David
Batty, so it’s just adding insult to injury that his greatest goal for the club
is merely a footnote in the epitaph of Tony Yeboah at Leeds.
It’s still better than your moment of greatness being
overshadowed by the cloud of a catastrophic goalkeeping error, I suppose.
Gary McAllister — Rangers 2-1 Leeds, October 1992
Gary Mac with a sumptuous volley in the first minute of the
first leg of the 1992/93 European Cup second round. It should have been the
moment that Leeds fans believed they might have been on track to win their
second – yes, second — European Cup.
Twenty minutes later, John Lukic flapped at a corner and
sent it into the Leeds goal, having been ‘blinded’ by the Ibrox lights. Ally
McCoist made it 2-1 just before half-time and Leeds didn’t recover. They lost
2-1 at Elland Road in the second leg and the European dream was over. Had they
won, they would have faced Marseille in the group stage, the winner of which
would have played Milan in the final.
We could have had revenge for 1973, 1975, and everything in
between, but the Ibrox floodlights played the twelfth man and conspired to beat
Leeds. Not only have referees and UEFA conspired against us, but now we’ve to
fight physics? Never stood a chance.
Billy Bremner — Celtic 2-1 Leeds, April 1970
Leeds trailed 1-0 on aggregate going into the second leg of
the 1969/70 European Cup semi-final, a game played in front of 136,505 at
Hampden Park, a stadium with an official capacity of 51,866.
In the 14th minute, Billy Bremner received the ball thirty
yards from goal, took a few touches and launched a vicious drive past the
Celtic ‘keeper Evan Williams and into the top corner. 1-1 on aggregate, game
on.
The more experienced Celtic players shone in the second
half, as John Hughes and Bobby Murdoch, both members of the 1967 European
Cup-winning side, each scored just after half-time and gave Leeds an
insurmountable challenge. What could have been a memorable night for Bremner
back on home soil instead became another bitter semi-final defeat.