Liverpool v Leeds: Nudging the Apple Cart
Five minutes in and the mountain that we’d been raring to have a go at since July suddenly began to look just a little perilous from its base.
Robin Koch, arm outstretched, looked every bit a young man in a new team — and country — with just a few minutes of international football and one or two training sessions under his belt, as Mo Salah’s shot ricocheted cruelly off his thigh and onto the bit it’s not supposed to touch. Pascal Struijk, a last minute addition alongside the debutant, looked unable to deal with the pace and movement of Sadio Mane, while every attempt to move the ball out of defence seemed to hit a constantly advancing wall of red. Something was wrong. We were supposed to be showing the Premier League how good we were, and Liverpool were ruining it!
Social media was awash with incredulity last week when Kalvin Phillips, sat on the England bench in Reykjavik, was referred to as the “Yorkshire Pirlo”, as hundreds of football fans across the country — apparently incapable of understanding the idea of hyperbole or humour — furrowed their brows and banged their fists in confusion and disagreement. But Kalvin looked every inch his moniker as he received a pass from the back, spun on the ball in his own half, then launched a pass over the top of the one they call “Trent” (terrible nickname — he’s not even a river) which Jack Harrison controlled with the deftness of touch usually reserved for early-morning films on Channel 5. It’s ironic that Harrison, so oft maligned in the Championship for the touches that follow his consistently brilliant first, chose his first Premier League appearance, against the defending champions, to slip past his marker, nutmeg the future of England’s defence, before smashing the ball into the bottom corner. Before we knew it, we were over the first ridge.
I won’t run through the rest of the game play-by-play: God knows there’ll be enough of that to go through in the days that follow, and I’m sure the majority have already watched those three goals so many times that you’re unsure if they ever really happened or if it was some FIFA fever-dream. No? Just me? Well, even if you’ve somehow managed to find contentment with just the one viewing, you’ll understand when I say there was something almost illusory about the match, watching the same white shirts we’d watched for two seasons flood forward in the same way they always had, but this time on a level-footing with the Champions of England ©. Time seemed to flow at half-speed — by the time it was 3–2 just 33 minutes had passed and the sun had burned out, leaving the world cast in shadow while Patrick Bamford continued to sprint at the Liverpool back-line, no doubt riling Virgil van Dijk with criticism of Rembrandt’s Leiden period.
And if it was hard for Leeds fans to believe, even with two seasons of Bielsaball under their belts, it was even harder for the professional, highly-paid “pundits” of Sky Sports, who sat agog at the energy, pressing, and intricate attacking approach of a team that they had all been giving their well-informed opinions on for weeks now. You’d imagine it would be a pre-cursor of predicting where a team would finish, or how they would handle Premier League football, to actually watch that team play a few times, but apparently most football journalists (going off the bulk of shocked reactions to yesterday’s game) have been making their assessments without ever throwing a cursory glance towards the Championship. Far be it from me to question how others should do their job, but if I tried to teach Macbeth without having read the play, I might find myself surprised when Duncan dies, and my students might find themselves with some surprisingly low grades.
It was, admittedly, lovely to hear and read the praise afforded to Leeds and Marcelo Bielsa following the game. For a club that are so universally detested, it makes a nice change to hear about how “incredible” our side was from all corners of the football world; even drawing a very noticeable “wow” from Jurgen Klopp, who I’m sure had no idea there were cameras all over him at that point. But, as flattering as it was, that was only the start — suddenly every man, woman and child in Scousendom was jumping on social media to extol approval on Leeds. We were “a breath of fresh air”, and would no doubt “bother the big boys” of the league. We played football “the right way” and were applauded for our guts in daring to lay a glove on the reigning champs. And as every comment was posted, as every media hack who had no doubt weighed in on spygate lavished praise on Bielsa, you began to sense a certain comfort in it all. Comfort in the knowledge that Leeds had made the game entertaining, but ultimately hadn’t upset the status quo that Klopp’s side have spent the last few years building. Good for you, Leeds, for giving it a go, but good thing you didn’t get anything out of the game, otherwise those Twitter accounts adorned with Liver birds and burning torches might have been singing a different tune about disallowed goals and lucky breaks of the ball.
Of course it’s great to see the genius of Bielsa’s game recognised, and those players that have delivered it so consistently finally given the nod on the big stage that they so deserve, but do Leeds want to be the club congratulated for having a go, or the ones despised for actually achieving it? Norwich received plenty of compliments for their approach in the first half of last season, Huddersfield battled and scrapped to safety before sinking to anonymity once more, so we can’t simply be happy being “good to watch”. Mistakes need to be cut out, panic at the back needs to be tempered, and certain record-signings need to have their heads cleared then screwed back on before their next appearance.
Not that I’m at all implying that one game signifies contentment with being second best. We know Bielsa wasn’t happy at the end of the game, and we know there’ll be minimal pats on the back amongst the players for throwing the game away when a ridiculously valuable point was on the table. I know and trust that the defence will be tightened, that set-pieces will be drilled, and that Rodrigo will be forgiven and given the chance to redeem himself before long. I know and trust that not a single player will look at the praise afforded to them by opposition fans or TV pundits and think it makes up for a loss.
I don’t want praise. I don’t want to keep the rest of this league content. I want vitriol. I want seething anger in those comment sections, full of wild accusations and deluded fantasies of “next time”. I want Leeds to be what we really are. Happily, I know Bielsa and his players want exactly the same thing.
