Leeds United 0-0 Crystal Palace: Open up my eager eyes — Square Ball 28/9/26
Boring!
Words by Chris McMenamy
The perfect gauge of any Leeds United performance at Elland
Road is Big Leigh Nicholson’s choice of full-time music. Monday night saw the
club’s announcer break out I Predict a Riot to celebrate a 4-1 thrashing of
Newcastle. He called time on Sunday’s painfully drab ninety minutes of goalless
nothing by pressing play on The Killers’ Mr Brightside, the perfect full stop
to an afternoon of mind numbing boredom — like the last song of the night at a
wedding you regret going to.
If you were to ask for a highlight from this 0-0 that wasn’t
to do with Brenden Aaronson and Dan James offering nothing in attack, then I’d
have to say the ninety second cameo of Jean-Matteo Bahoya looking comparatively
like the best footballer that has ever lived.
The young, unseen attacker rose from the United bench just
as the fourth official prepared to signal that there would be a mere three
minutes of added time. There was less than two minutes remaining by the time
Leeds made the change, and hearts were in mouths when Farke threw him on at
left wing-back and the kid immediately found himself defending an attack. The
boy wonder, winger extraordinaire — and Farke confused him with Melvin Bard.
Then Bahoya beat two Palace players under pressure and also
forced Jefferson Lerma into a daft foul, one that gave Anton Stach the chance
to launch one last limp effort into the box to no avail. Farke is right to
point out that Bahoya had struggled with injury towards the end of last season
and isn’t up to Premier League speed just yet, but he must have wished he had
the power of hindsight and thrown him into the fray 25 minutes earlier.
Instead, he introduced both James and Aaronson to inject some life into a Leeds
attack that flatlined, but nothing came of it.
This was the same starting XI that had dismantled Newcastle
only six days earlier, winning 4-1. Leeds created 1.99 expected goals (xG) that
night, but they also produced 1.33 xG in this noticeably more blunt display of
attacking intent. Should we be worried that United could not follow up one
excellent performance with another? I’m leaning towards no, but only because I
had a brief moment of maturity and decided to do something else with my day
before sitting down to write this match report later on.
We were given the sort of spectacle you’d expect from a game
relegated to Sky Sports Tennis. Perhaps if Leeds had taken advantage of their
whites and got the racquets out, we’d have enjoyed the ninety minutes a little
more. Instead we sat through an opening 45 minutes with little action. Palace
won the midfield battle and were able to move the ball between the lines, but
couldn’t do anything with it. Leeds tried to get the ball forward, but often
without any real success. Build-up was either too slow, or too inaccurate.
Some pondered whether a half-time system may have
kickstarted the Leeds attack, but Farke opted against. Palace began the second
period much brighter and were somewhat unlucky to see Tyrick Mitchell’s goal
disallowed for offside. It should have served as a wakeup call for Leeds, but
Palace continued to edge it.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin went close from a James Justin cross,
but he lashed his first time shot too close to goalkeeper Walter Benitez.
Aaronson and James came on for Jayden Bogle and Ao Tanaka,
much to the chagrin of some:
Cynical? Probably. Prophetic? Quite possibly. Noah Okafor’s
lungs were screaming so Lukas Nmecha came on slightly after and continued his
unique interpretation of the centre-forward role — which is to say that I’m not
really sure what he did, if anything.
The last gasp introduction of Bahoya came in a moment of
real desperation:
Perhaps the language is a tad harsh, but it does encapsulate
the frustration to some degree.
This is Leeds United Football Club. Perfection may be what
we strive for, but quite often we exist in some chaotic realm instead.
Evaluating the opening act of this Premier League season as a body of work, a
whole nine points from five matches has to be considered a decent return.
We may have drawn at Forest and won this game if both were
to be replayed, just as we may have beaten Brighton and lost to Brentford. This
is a division where the vast majority of teams are recruiting with very similar
visions — physically dominant players from other leagues. When you fill the
competition with big lads, don’t be surprised if the managers putting them in
their team end up with similar end products and, as a result, we see the same
sort of narrow, hard fought battles throughout this season.
Or maybe that’s just a polite way of saying that was pretty
boring folks, can we not do it again, please and thank you?
