There was no logical explanation for Joe Rodon chasing a lost cause down the right wing deep into Hull City’s half, but I was glad he was. Hull’s Ozan Tufan had it covered, but the ball was bouncing invitingly for a fifty-fifty challenge. Both players ignored the ball, colliding in a meaty shoulder barge as it rolled out for a throw-in. As Tufan casually walked away, Rodon shouted a few words in his direction that, from a few rows away in the East Stand, I was fairly sure weren’t compliments. Jogging back into position, Rodon continued muttering in his perma-scowl, this time lambasting nobody but himself.

There was a lot of talking among Leeds’ players all night against Hull City. Nothing was working as it should have been, and they were trying to work out why. Throughout the unbeaten run of 2024, the triangle of Rodon, Ethan Ampadu, and Ilia Gruev has held everything together, setting the platform for everyone else to get on with their jobs. But now that axis has been disrupted by Gruev’s absence, nobody was doing what their teammates around them were expecting. After Hull equalised, Pat Bamford, Cree Summerville, Glen Kamara, and Archie Gray were debating who should have closed down Regan Slater. At one point, the disconnect throughout the entire team was underlined by Bamford and Illan Meslier telling each other that, whatever they were trying to do, do something different.

Rodon wasn’t in the mood for discussion. He rarely is, playing every game with the moody expression of a kid who’s been told to come in for their tea only to find a plate of vegetables rather than ice cream. And on that night of all nights, struggling with a back spasm that meant he couldn’t even join in with light training on the morning of the game, tactical nuances could wait. The last thing he needed was to be scrapping for a win while his teammates were dicking around drawing.

Instead, Rodon was yelling at everyone. The opposition, the referee, his own team. He wasn’t even sparing himself the occasional verbal lashing. Anything to take his mind off the pain in his back and the fatigue of his 47th game of the season. Jesus Christ could have risen from the centre circle carrying two bags full of Easter eggs and Rodon would have grabbed him by the scruff of his robe and told him to fuck off the pitch and let Leeds get on with trying to win the game.

Unambiguous love for this man pic.twitter.com/ZRuhdFkgAg

— No Score Draws ✍️ (Alex & Sian – BOOK OUT NOW!) (@CheapPanini) November 24, 2023

Given Daniel Farke revealed after the game that Rodon was playing dosed up with painkillers, maybe it wouldn’t have been a surprise if he did hallucinate Jesus in the centre circle. I’ve often thought the best nights at Elland Road can feel like a psychedelic trip. In The Doors Of Perception, Aldous Huxley notes ‘the close similarity, in chemical composition, between mescalin and adrenalin’. I’m no chemist, but it might be the best explanation I’ve heard for why, when Elland Road is at its most terrifyingly exhilarating, the green of the pitch and the white of the kits appear more vivid, the aroma of fried onions, flat lager, and god awful farts smells more pungent, and the songs and silences and sighs of the crowd sound so much more distinct.

At least that’s why I reckon my palms were getting clammy and I could feel my heart beating out of my chest. At one point in the second half I become very aware I was experiencing the tension through my own two eyes, puzzled by how 35,000 people could be going through their own unique sensations yet feeling the exact same emotions, the type of thought that should only be voiced at 3am in a random kitchen while a wide-eyed stranger is talking very quickly about Area 51. Then Dan James dropped a tab of LSB from fifty yards and all four sides of the stadium were shaking and swaying and I felt like I was spinning around in a washing machine.

Or maybe Rodon wasn’t hallucinating at all, and was just raging at the world like the rest of us, because he understood exactly what was happening and it was making him furious. Perhaps that’s the most logical explanation for why he was chasing after a ball down the right wing just so he could try to knock someone over. As Leeds were defending their 2-1 lead in the first minute of stoppage time, Rodon roared when Meslier claimed a simple catch of a looping ball into the air, then bollocked the referee for daring to give a free-kick after he blatantly tripped someone up on the halfway line. With a minute to go, he growled in celebration at his bezzie Ampadu for heading a dangerous ball across the six-yard box out for a corner, which Rodon headed away not once, but twice, completing a thirteen-second hat-trick of defending by blocking a shot to launch the counter that allowed James to send everyone into delirium. Rodon didn’t bother looking where his block landed. He turned to face the South Stand, and screamed at them too. ⬢

(Photograph by James Heaton/News Images, via Alamy)