Leeds United 1-0 Harrogate Town: Positives, positives — Square Ball 13/1/25

Not Crawley, or Sutton, or any of the others

Written by: Chris McMenamy

On 11th January 2025, nothing happened. Not really. Leeds United won in the FA Cup third round for only the sixth time in the last two decades, beating lower league opposition by a single goal. What are we meant to glean from this? No, really? Leeds continued this season’s theme of doing just enough to win, failing to blow away a side currently gurgling the Football League plughole in front of a packed Elland Road. But let’s focus on the positives, beginning with the team sheet.

Karl Darlow, Joss Guilavogui and Isaac Schmidt. Isaac Schmidt! A first start, one that promoted him to being a real Leeds United player, no longer a mythical creature like The Loch Ness Monster or Zan Benedicic. Schmidt looked like he’d played more than 25 minutes for Leeds this season, linking up well with teammates in an unfamiliar starting XI and stretching Harrogate’s rigid defensive structure on several occasions, mimicking Jayden Bogle at right-back reasonably well.

Despite the nature of the opposition, seeing ninety minutes of Schmidt gave the 35,000+ in attendance faith that we might have a decent player on our hands. The FA Cup has ended budding Leeds careers before, just ask Cameron Borthwick-Jackson. Daniel Farke’s reluctance to use Schmidt isn’t indicative of the player’s ability. Ilia Gruev started in twenty league games in 2023/24, but only one of those came in the first half of the season. There will likely come a time when Schmidt is needed whether Farke is ready or not, and at least the player seems ready.

While Schmidt looked sharper than expected, Willy Gnonto continued his run of lethargic performances, leaving the burden of creativity on Largie Ramazani and Manor Solomon, both of whom were Leeds’ most likely goal threat. And so it proved when after almost an hour of patient prodding, Solomon’s accurate cross found an unmarked Ramazani, who headed in with ease.

Harrogate had defended sternly up to that point, and Leeds remained patient to a saintly degree. Harrogate defenders doubled up on Leeds’ wide players and presented a greater challenge than several Championship sides have this season. QPR, Plymouth, Derby, Oxford, we’re looking at you. Harrogate’s issue was doing anything with the ball when they got hold of it. They might have had a penalty early on when a speculative ball over the top of the Leeds defence prompted (somewhat) makeshift centre-back Guilavogui to lean heavily on the shoulder of Harrogate attacker Josh March, who took full advantage and went to ground. But referee James Bell waved play on.

The closest Harrogate came to scoring was just after half-time, when Ethan Ampadu lost the ball on the edge of Leeds’ box and March shot straight at Darlow, only a few moments after winger Dean Cornelius almost got through on goal, only to be stopped by an impeccably timed Pascal Struijk tackle.

Leeds dominated the game, to the surprise of nobody, but lacked the bite we expected to see when the teams were announced and everyone realised Ramazani, Solomon and Gnonto would be running at League Two defenders. Harrogate punished Leeds’ inaccuracy in the final third, reading and intercepting passes, crosses and even blocking a shot from Mateo Joseph, whose energy leading the Leeds line translated into desperation at times as he searched for his first goal since October.

Still, Joseph got in promising positions and did most things right, short of putting the ball in the back of the net. He came close, however, hitting the post from eighteen yards just before half-time. Both Ramazani and Joseph remained busy, working to find an opening but falling flat at the final hurdle. Promising, but not decisive.

It was perhaps telling of the overall Leeds performance that the goal came from a moment of class from someone that we’re told is a Champions League player. Also telling is that Leeds didn’t score a second, the lack of cohesion reminiscent of a team early in pre-season, just like when Leeds last faced Harrogate. Both games saw unfamiliar combinations: Guilavogui in defence on Saturday, James Debayo alongside Joe Rodon and Ampadu in a back three in July.

Farke wasn’t tempted by a tie against lower league opposition into giving opportunities to youngsters like Charlie Crew and Sam Chambers. “I don’t believe in giving away gifts to youngsters in games like this,” he said afterwards. “I do it when they deserve it and it really counts. I do not want to use that chance and then they are never seen again. Bringing back Ilia [Gruev] and Junior [Firpo] was important tonight.”

Firpo’s return was timely, if purely ceremonial. Max Wöber had a shocker against Hull the week before and Sam Byram’s body can only do so much. Gruev’s appearance was a bonus, just over three months on from a knee surgery that was expected to keep him out until March.

If Farke doesn’t believe in gifts, then we must assume Darlow starting in goal was a decision based on merit. Even when framed against the level of opposition, his performance was reassuringly normal, catching crosses and sensible distribution; a pleasant change of pace from recent weeks. Whether that translates into a prolonged stay between the posts remains to be seen, given Farke said changing his number one would be a “sign of madness”, which differs from Albert Einstein’s definition of madness.

So what can we really glean from a 1-0 win against Harrogate? Well, Tottenham showed these things can be a lot trickier than they look. The most I can hope is that Farke learnt that Isaac Schmidt is a useful weapon, like a Swiss Army knife. Amirite?! Oh, and Karl Darlow deserves a run of games in goal, for everyone’s sake. As third round FA Cup ties go, I didn’t mind the best part of two hours in sub-zero south Leeds if that’s what it took to avoid a repeat of Rochdale, Newport, Crawley or any of the others.