Responsible

Bournemouth 4-1 Leeds United: The next letdown

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman
Rodrigo at the end of the game at Bournemouth, looking like he wishes the beach would open up and swallow him

It feels like even saving themselves from relegation won’t be enough to save Leeds United from this season. Even if Leeds stay up in the end, it’s hard to imagine the last game, at home to Spurs, being a repeat of last year’s party away to Brentford. The reason for that, and the problem for the next few weeks, is that the team is failing game after game to offer any alternatives to the conclusions that everyone came to weeks ago. Everyone knows what has gone wrong, everyone knows who is to blame, everyone has already made that perfectly publicly clear. So when Leeds lose a vital match 4-1, as they did at Bournemouth, there’s nothing new to say that hasn’t already been said. That, pals, is purgatory. At least, by definition, it’s temporary.

Temporary for the fans, anyway. We’ll still have our club next season, and be as foolishly devoted to it as ever, no matter what division we’re in. As far as Andrea Radrizzani’s ownership of Leeds United goes the situation feels — and should feel — like it’s all gone to hell. The obituaries have been written, the post-mortems are underway. Everyone is just waiting for a body.

During this game, Radrizzani replied to a Twitter DM from One Leeds Fan Channel’s Conor McGilligan, to say: ‘I am broken. I am responsible for this shit. Unacceptable. You don’t deserve this. Ridiculous.’ At least Twitter is living up to its recent utility of making millionaires look stupid. Radrizzani’s words, though, are only words, easily said. Actually taking responsibility, in his position, only ever means sacking someone else and hoping the person who replaces them can bail the club out — in which case Radrizzani could continue unscathed, either as owner or profiting seller. Responsibility, in this case, could still mean an approximate £300m profit, but Radrizzani missed his chances to do anything to help himself. Now it’s all down to the coach in the dugout and the players on the pitch to deliver him from a fate worse than a reduced sale price.

Those chances were the summer and winter transfer windows of 2021/22, when Marcelo Bielsa was not backed, and the summer and winter transfer windows of 2022/23, when Jesse Marsch was backed then sacked. Now Javi Gracia is trying to sort things out and, even while he’s failing, I’m struggling to see what more he could be doing. Suggestions include ‘pick different players’, ‘sort the tactics out’ and ‘stop them making mistakes’, but these rely on the coach having magical powers which this season is proving, across the Premier League, are not real unless you are Roy Hodgson (and even he retrieved the baton of a recent job in his home borough, rather than parachute into unknown territory) or Marcelo Bielsa. This season feels like it should be the end-point of the football coach’s elevation to sage, that has been fuelled by the cult of personality that the Premier League’s insistence on pre- and post-match press conferences creates in lieu of more relaxed interviews with a wider cast of characters. The successes at Manchester City — perfect after seven carefully built seasons — Arsenal, where Mikel Arteta has been ‘turning things around’ for more than three years, and even Brighton, propose consistent long-term investment as the way to winning. Newcastle have done it faster, but it’s the same thing: good coach plus clever spending on players and infrastructure. But years of Sky and BT billing games as ‘Guardiola vs Arteta’ or ‘Hodgson vs Moyes’ have transformed perception of the Premier League from a competition between teams of exciting skilful athletes to a battle of middle-aged intellects, with winning reliant on picking the right wizard from the shelf who will wave the right tactical wand, as if Erling Haaland would be nobody without Pep Guardiola even though he scored goal after goal ‘for’ Jesse Marsch for crying out loud. Yes, Frank Lampard Junior is proving you can’t just throw loads of expensive footballers onto a field and expect it to work without a competent coach in charge. But he’s also proving that you can’t just put a new coach in charge and expect them to sort all the problems out in two weeks, or even six months in Graham Potter’s case. Lampard should enjoy this moment, because he’ll probably never be this relevant again.

Gracia, after saying he had a bit more time between games to do more preparation with the players before going to Bournemouth, came up with a plan lots of fans have suggested: three at the back with wing-backs. It didn’t look like magic but looked worth a go. Making the left wing-back Jackie Harrison meant Leeds still benefited from his hard work, and could also accommodate, after the recent interruption, the talent of Wilf Gnonto. This new look gave Bournemouth problems in the first half, and included a quality goal — Harrison winning a loose ball, giving it to Gnonto, and his cross dropping perfectly for a can’t-miss header by Pat Bamford that, this time, he didn’t miss. He also didn’t celebrate, because by this time — the 31st minute — Leeds were already 2-0 down and they only got this one back because Bournemouth had started getting cocky in possession.

Bournemouth had taken the measure of Leeds’ line-up and started attacking down Harrison’s side, but it seemed like their lack of attacking quality was going to blunt their threat. So Leeds gave them the chances they needed, first by not closing down Jefferson Lerma after Harrison was beaten and Liam Cooper blocked a shot, leaving Lerma to pick a spot with the rebound; second, by not closing down Lerma at a corner when Illan Meslier, misjudging the cross, patted the ball down to his feet. This time Lerma didn’t pick his spot but hammered the ball in, less than four minutes after his first. Bournemouth knew that, despite the new formation, the easiest time to score against Leeds was straight after they just had, and put their foot down in those few minutes to make the most of their opportunity.

Not much mattered after that. Gnonto had some bright moments at the start of the second half. The game was unfolding painfully slowly, which felt like it might help Leeds but didn’t: Max Wöber, on after Cooper was injured, fell beneath a ball over the top and Bournemouth made a third goal from Dominic Solanke. Adam Forshaw replaced Weston McKennie in midfield and made a strong argument for starting simply because he can keep the ball and give it to his teammates. And in stoppage time Bournemouth scored a fourth. The final whistle blew and United’s players milled about uncertainly in front of a furious away end before trudging off about as miserably as they trudged in.

And now? Now it’s Monday morning, and we’re all waiting. Not for Javi Gracia to be sacked, because that almost doesn’t matter at this stage. Waiting for a magical turnaround in form at the Etihad on Saturday? Lol no. Hoping Leicester, Everton and Nottingham Forest will keep us hopeful by the time we play West Ham and Spurs? Not even that. We’re reduced to waiting for the next let down and the next and the next, because week by week the trouble is the same and the outcome is the same, and even if something changes in the next month and Leeds stay up, 17th will be so far from what was promised that it will only feel like another disappointment. ⬢

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