This was a game to reflect the tyranny of analytics-based football, where thought and expression are abandoned for the playbook, set pieces rule, and long throws become key events. For Brentford’s Michael Kayode, read Leeds’s Ethan Ampadu, both taking an age before hurling the ball into a mass of bodies, before the ball was bundled away. How long can this tactic stay in vogue, now that every Premier League side is so well prepared?
Scoring a goal from open play remains a valid tactic and from such a situation Rico Henry set up Jordan Henderson to score his first goal in English football since 2021, via a deflection off the Leeds defender Jaka Bijol. In turn, Leeds found their deserved equaliser from open play, Dominic Calvert-Lewin heading home Wilfried Gnonto’s cross. Henry and Gnonto, both substitutes, had added dabs of quality to a previously constipated contest.
