I suppose it was fitting that after a game in which Leeds faced our former captain Lee Peltier, Daniel Farke went back to paraphrasing one of Neil Warnock’s mantras. By all means enjoy it, but enjoy it by being fucking disciplined:

“My feeling was a bit we enjoyed our dominance a bit too much and lacked a bit the last two or three per cent to be really on it and focus in order to bury this game at half-time. If you’re not doing this, this can happen in this league.”

But who could really blame Leeds’ players for enjoying the football they were playing during those first 45 minutes in Rotherham? If it was too easy, that was as much Leeds’ prerogative as Rotherham’s shortcoming.

If Rotherham wanted to play walking football, Glen Kamara was happy to oblige. It didn’t matter. He had all the time in the world to keep Leeds ticking in possession. The Peacocks were still bossing the opening half, and their patience was justified by the chances they were creating. Rotherham’s goalie wasn’t being peppered with shots, but when Leeds did create opportunities to score, they were good enough chances for the players to expect at least one of them to go in eventually.

It says a lot about the damage done to supporters by the last two years of watching Leeds scraping to safety with Pascal Struijk and Robin Koch taking turns to anchor the midfield, and getting relegated with Marc Roca, Weston McKennie and Brenden Aaronson looking frightened of the ball. By comparison, Kamara looks like he’s been dropped into our team from Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona midfield, which begs the question why the hell did we leave him training on his own in Glasgow for so much of the summer?

Where there was panic among his predecessors, Kamara radiates composure. It’s what made Adam Forshaw immediately stand out whenever he was fit enough to play over the previous two seasons. For all the money Leeds spent in the Premier League, they still didn’t have enough players who were comfortable to control a pass and give the ball to another teammate. The basics are what Kamara does well, and he does them with enough class to convince supporters he’s A Good Footballer.

Watching Kamara in the first half at Rotherham reminded me of Mateusz Klich. He keeps things simple. Of his 452 passes for Leeds this season, only thirteen have been beyond thirty yards. He has switched the play over forty yards from one side of the pitch to the other exactly once. But whatever Kamara is doing, it always seems important. He spends a lot of his time shuttling around the pitch off the ball, manoeuvring opposition players with him and creating space for his teammates around him. After a while it will be time for him to reappear with the ball, and even though you were certain he was just standing in the middle of the pitch, he’ll suddenly pop up on either wing.

He even shares one one of Klich’s more frustrating traits. Once Leeds fans started singing about Klich scoring everywhere we go, he mastered the art of curling the ball over the crossbar from the edge of the box; Kamara favours missing the target after ghosting into the inside right channel.

If Klich was playing for Leeds on Friday night and was lulled by the ease of the first half, he’d have enjoyed himself by sneakily pouring ice cold water down an opponent’s already frozen neck or quietly tying their bootlaces together. Kamara is a different character, adding his own razzmatazz by getting the ball next to his own penalty area surrounded by Rotherham players trying to tackle him, tricking them all with the confidence and poise of a Maradona turn into space like he was back having a kickabout under the Westway as a kid growing up in London.

The problem for Leeds wasn’t that those first 45 minutes were too easy. It was that they ended. Right as the clock ticked over into the one minute of stoppage time, Leeds lost the ball, and Rotherham scored their equaliser. It was an ugly goal that belonged in a minging second half. But Kamara still made sure those opening 45 minutes ended with at least five final seconds of fun. After Junior Firpo lost the ball, Kamara gracefully won back possession, turned, and glided past his attempted tackler with a dragback.

Sure, Cree Summerville then thought he had more time than he realised and Rotherham equalised, but that was Friday and today it’s Tuesday, so whatever. Being briefly reunited with Lee Peltier was a reminder of those dark days when Leeds were told to enjoy themselves by being fucking disciplined, and nobody — not the players, not the fans, not even Colin himself — found any of it even remotely enjoyable. The occasional dropped points away from home are a price worth paying if it means we get to enjoy players like Glen Kamara making things look too easy. ⬢