January 3rd. Remember the date…
It seems like such a long time now. In terms of time and in terms of the football we are watching. Apologies for the fuzzy picture – Samsung for you! I think that today’s forecast of maximum temp of 11 and minimum temp of 10 degrees is a bit misleading. Completely conflicting with the actual temperature outside this morning – which was bloody freezing. Full on windscreen scraping at 6.30am this morning! But it is January after all. Winter. Brrr.
Anyway, back to football
January 3rd 2010. The manager – Simon Grayson. The second to last manager we have had who was interested in a cup run. It’s a shame he didn’t do too well in the play off final though. Our last manager to engage in cup run was the Mighty Steve Evans, who got us to the heady heights of the 5th round. I liked Steve Evans.
13 years on and where are we now? The gulf that divides Leeds and a decent Cup run has become so huge, it could well be described as a crevasse. Let’s not mince words – Mariana Trench. As is the gulf between the football we are playing and the football we were playing.
The recent years under Bielsa hasn’t helped. Even under him our Cup runs weren’t much to write home about, but his job was to get us promoted, which he did. The football we played the last season in the Championship and the 1st season in the PL was exceptional. The best I have seen us play in a long long time. Some of those games are probably the best games I have watched in real life. Certainly there were lots of heart stopping moments, both home and away, but I suppose beating Birmingham at St Andrews or that home game against West Brom? Probably still cannot beat the display in Monaco in 1995 though. Yeboah. Yeboah.
Either way, after drudgery of losing just 3-1 to Citeh at home ( I know, it could have been worse if Grealish had brought his shooting boots that day) and the stalemate at St James’s Park, the football we are enduring is hardly enough to light a sparkler, let alone a firework.
After watching the Brentford v Livarpool game last night and Chelski’s poor effort against Forest, no wonder we beat them. Our other two wins so far this season, were against Bournemouth and Wolves ( I think it was an own goal in the end?). But at least the teams below us are (up to press) worse than us, so my target of 16th this season is, us safe from relegation.
This is possibly THE most pessimistic I have been in a long long time. But at least I think we are safe from the drop. Purely because there are 6 teams (Bournemouth, Everton, West Ham, Forest, Wolves and Southampton) below us. I think I could maybe chuck in Leicester in the relegation dog fight too, so a bit more of a safety cushion there. Fingers crossed.
Whilst most, if not all other Leeds fans saw a brave defensive performance against Citeh, I’m afraid I just saw an off-the-pace De Bruyne and Grealish minus his shooting boots. Against Newcastle, even though I was a million miles from the pitch, we looked slow and narrow. But according to the manager, we “put in a solid display”. I may just have the January blues, but realistically I see nothing which makes me think we will be anything more than, well, 16th.
The only outstanding moments so far this season have been Meslier’s saves and Pascal’s efforts in front of goal. Meslier has kept us in it several times, and he managed to annoy the Barcodes on Saturday. Always a bonus.
Beige
In food terms, right now Leeds United are houmous. Beige but does the job.
At times under Bielsa, we were medium rare T bone steak, triple cooked chips in beef dripping, with a mountain of onion rings and just half a grilled tomato please. Sometimes we were a mega mix naan kebab with chilli and garlic mayo – exceptional times! But in the main, a decent ribeye steak, chips, onion rings and tomato (no mushrooms).
In the PL at the moment, Arsenal isn’t even rump steak let alone rib eye. Citeh are the equivalent of BBQ meat feast pan pizza hut delivery (sometimes right on time and toppings to the edge, other times 10 minutes late and not enough ham). Livarpool and Sc*m? Drive thru Big Mac Meal. Always full of hope that it will be as good as it looks on the picture, but in the main, limp soggy bread and overdone chips. Newcastle though, they are beginning to look like the roast beef dinner, with a giant Yorkshire pudding of the league this season.
Midtable Spurs, Brentford, Brighton etc. delectations are Drakes fish and chips, Wetherspoons big breakfast, Toby carvery, KFC bargain bucket and maybe the Mill Hill Doner. At the other end of the table, you have Southampton currently on the Asda smartprice veg pasty, with the rest of the bottom half ranging between Greggs vegan sausage roll, Cooplands 4 sausage rolls for £1.20, supermarket quiche and maybe reaching the heady heights of a Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie.
Us? Houmous.
And like all houmous, you could chuck a bit of money at it and go to town for Marks and Sparks / Waitrose / Sainsburys Taste The Difference red pepper stuff, but it’s just houmous. Even if Radrizzani does what the fans want him to do, and he splashes the cash in the transfer window, we’d still just be generic beige with an extra squeeze of lemon juice and a hint of garlic.
But this is good enough for most Leeds fans. Mid table and concentrating on the league season after season. No cup runs, no excitement, just beige.
It’s just not good enough for me. I’ve been spoilt by Bielsa.
But I’ve seen us worse.
Under Warnock we were the yellow stickered egg and cress sarnie in brown bread reduced to 10p. I’ll stay the course, like I always do and hope for better times ahead. If you don’t expect too much, you’re never going to be let down too harshly.
16th.
Until the new Messiah comes. Until then, we will always have the hope of January 3rd. I just hope it doesn’t take us another 13 years.
