First-hour disaster
Leeds United were wretched for an hour at Cardiff City on Sunday and then their substitutions changed the match. Somehow, they salvaged a draw, a replay which feels like a minor inconvenience and, just about, their pride.
The Bluebirds came into this match two points above the Championship’s relegation zone with more than half of the campaign now under their belts. No team has scored fewer goals than Cardiff in the second tier (20 goals in 26 matches).
Mark Hudson then took that team of goal-shy relegation battlers and made eight changes to the line-up which last played in the league seven days earlier. Even though Jesse Marsch made seven switches of his own, one fewer than Hudson, there was still more than enough in that line-up to get the job done.
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And yet it was abysmal. Leeds dominated possession and territory, but did nothing with it. Cardiff were happy to put men behind the ball and bide their time. They were rarely opened up, but still managed to get at the Whites.
Two goals in seven minutes left United shellshocked. For a team that was seeing so much of the ball, how could they find themselves two goals down? The defence resembled five strangers thrown together on that morning in Wales, while the attack found zero penetration of Cardiff’s packed central channel.
Pascal Struijk, made stand-in captain ahead of 32-year-old Joel Robles and Spain international Diego Llorente, was a million miles from the consistently high level we usually see from him. The 23-year-old seemed half asleep in the decisions he was making.
Struijk seemed to labour over simple passes into his feet or making basic defensive decisions. His call to allow a loose ball to bobble through to Robles, which he had no chance of making, was later criticised by Marsch as the turning point for the entire match.
While that seemed a little over the top, he was asleep at the wheel when Cardiff did eventually breach the Leeds backline. Isaak Davies, making his first start and third appearance of the season, had the freedom of Glamorgan to latch onto a through-ball, force a sprawling block from Robles and then kick off the six-yard-box pinball before the opening goal.
Rasmus Kristensen struggled with basic passes and positioning which was supposed to be hurting Cardiff’s flanks. Llorente looked typically shaky, while Junior Firpo, who did improve in the late cavalry charge, looked bereft of confidence whenever the ball managed to find its way to him.
As has been the case in many of the lacklustre performances seen this term, there was no discernible plan or system in place to hurt Cardiff. Whenever the ball went into Darko Gyabi or Sam Greenwood it was unclear how they were then expected to proceed with the attack.
Crysencio Summerville, Wilfried Gnonto, Joe Gelhardt and Brenden Aaronson were all keen to move around and trade places across the frontline, but it was haphazard and chaotic. As ever, the best chances seemed to come down to individual brilliance when Summerville or Gnonto beat a man before driving at goal.
The weight of chances created in the final half an hour, as Leeds lay siege to the home goal, could comfortably mask over the problems of the opening two-thirds if you are that way inclined. As we tick into 2023, though, does that remain your inclination?
The chaotic parts have always been entertaining, dramatic and emotional in the latter stages of matches this season, but should Leeds have ever been in a position where they needed to peg back two goals against a poor second-tier outfit?
Rodrigo is rewriting his Leeds chapter
Another game and another goal for Rodrigo. That’s now 11 in all competitions this season. Whatever your opinion on his suitability in this system or in this league, the Spain international’s goal-scoring record is becoming impossible to ignore.
If he continues at his current rate of 11 strikes per 18 outings, Rodrigo will score 23 goals in 38 games. That’s an astonishing return in a team which is struggling to get away from the bottom quarter of the Premier League.
It’s also six more than Patrick Bamford managed in what many fondly remember as a stellar season for the Whites number nine. So, the crucial first step is keeping Rodrigo healthy enough to play that many matches.
If he does end up plundering that kind of tally it’s going to go a long way in rewriting his Leeds history. Up until the start of this campaign, he remained a record signing who had flattered to deceive, struggled to make a role his own or, indeed, score the goals everyone thought he was brought here to do in 2020.
Much in the way that one season from Bamford has framed the overarching opinion of his time at Elland Road, 2022/23 may just be the year that changes the wider view on the footballer Leeds spent more on than anyone else in their history.
Sunday’s goal was a neat ribbon for tying together what was a transformative impact from the bench. Even if he hadn’t beaten Jak Alnwick between the sticks, Rodrigo would have still been credited with turning the tide of this game.
The 31-year-old brought presence, confidence, organisation, motivation, movement, flair and ideas to the field. The newest member of the leadership council is standing up to be counted in a season which is proving to be difficult in so many ways.
Wober settles in
With what looked like the latest FA Cup third-round disaster for Leeds unfolding, it felt almost unfair to send out a rusty debutant with zero experience in English football and no competitive minutes for nearly two months in his legs. Max Wober, with barely a few days of training at Thorp Arch behind him and evidently a long way to go with building his fitness, seemed set up to fail when he came on.
The Austrian could not have proved that theory more wrong. Wober was very good and in the least likely of his three positions too. His versatility as a central midfielder had very much felt like the backup option Marsch could lean on if he was desperate, but this was impressive.
Wober quickly demonstrated the leadership qualities we had heard about from those who followed him at Red Bull Salzburg. Despite his limited time with the team, Wober was happy to be a vocal organiser on the field.
He was quick to celebrate the goals and other big tackles with his comrades across the field. Wober brought composure, calmness, intelligence and bite to the middle of the park. He knew which passes to play, how and when to hit them.
We even saw him whipping the crowd up after the award of the penalty. He’s been here five minutes and he’s already identified the club’s finest resource to feed off.
It was a debut which poses exciting questions in the coming weeks. If Liam Cooper recovers from his glute issue for Friday’s Aston Villa trip it should mean Marsch remains patient with building Wober’s fitness, but if the skipper can’t make it, there won’t be too many complaints if the 24-year-old makes his full league debut at the first time of asking.
Pressure building on Marsch once again
If the deflating double-header defeats to Leicester City and Fulham pushed Marsch to the precipice for the first time in his Leeds tenure, when does he next look over the edge? The boos at half-time in Wales would suggest patience is wearing thin once more.
The last-gasp wins over Liverpool and Bournemouth relieved much of the pressure which had been simmering up and while they lost in the capital, there was some credit in Leeds being within 15 minutes of a Tottenham Hotspur away win. The World Cup break allowed a reset and gave Marsch a precious block of time to work away at the problems.
It was generally felt, across football, if a club was minded to sack its boss then taking advantage of the six-week pause was an obvious advantage. In standing by Marsch through that period it was a clear show of faith in the American and took the prospect of his exit off the table.
A loss to Manchester City was always expected, but a draw at Newcastle United was a very good result, if not an exciting performance. Draws with West Ham United and Cardiff are more troubling, but this is not about a small section of results since Christmas.
The fact remains, in 32 games at the helm, Leeds are still yet to show any signs of meaningful, sustained improvement. We know, very occasionally it does work in one-off matches like Chelsea or Arsenal at home, but the general trend of results is not playing into Marsch’s hands.
Leeds remain locked on two wins from their last 16 matches and they remain locked on the one point-per-game ratio they carried to 17th in the league table last season. When points do come they seem to come in chaotic fashion and we are back to wondering when the improvement is going to come.
Aston Villa, Brentford, Nottingham Forest, Everton and Southampton all face the Whites before the end of February. There is the small matter of a resurgent Manchester United visiting Elland Road in the middle of that fixture run too.
A serious haul of points from the next three matches would be handy for Marsch to take the sting out of the tail as they did at Anfield.
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