Life is all about decisions, as those making for a quick get-away from Elland Road on Monday night so painfully discovered.
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With the score 1-1 between Leeds United and Sunderland, some decided to beat the traffic. Daniel Farke, meanwhile, quite literally decided to beat Sunderland. Some decisions pay off and others really do not.
It’s never as simple as that of course. There will have been some very good reasons to head for the exits before full-time and so much had to go right for Farke’s decisions to result in three points for the Championship leaders. But for some time now there has been an inevitability about this Leeds team, who have proved they can win in all manner of ways in what is now a compelling case for automatic promotion, if not a title. And with Farke going for it in a different, specific way, his reward was a 2-1 stoppage time victory that for the first time created some real daylight between first-placed Leeds and Burnley in third, and a whole stadium of light between the Whites and Sunderland.
Gaps of seven and 10 points respectively feel significant with 13 games remaining and that much was reflected in the celebrations, both wild and calculated, in the late stages of the most dramatic night.
There was little hint of the madness to come in the first half an hour or so. Illan Meslier was presented with an immediate chance to put the previous meeting and its late drama behind him, pulling off a solid double save from Jobe Bellingham and Patrick Roberts as Sunderland worked a nice opportunity inside the opening two minutes. The risk Dan Ballard took to run the ball out under pressure from centre-half and the way Sunderland flooded forward to crash the box was an indicator that an opposition side had come to actually play.
Yet that was as much as they were allowed to play for half an hour as Leeds set about them with a real intensity, winning the ball back, winning corners but creating little in the way of actual chances.
Unsurprisingly given the stakes, there was bite to the game and a little needle. Trai Hume thundered into Manor Solomon, getting the ball, leaving the winger in pain and throwing some scornful word or another over his shoulder at his prone opponent. Brenden Aaronson, of all people, went in late on Enzo Le Fee and bent the Frenchman’s leg unnaturally. And wind-up merchant Luke O’Nien did what he does, tangling unnecessarily with Dan James after the whistle. The game’s first yellow, though, went to Ao Tanaka for a challenge of impossible-to-determine contact on Dan Neil.
And from that free-kick, which came on the edge of the Sunderland box after a spell of Leeds pressure, came the opener. It was entirely against the run of play and entirely avoidable. A ball over the top took Junior Firpo out of the equation and left Wilson Isidor in a one-v-one tussle with Ethan Ampadu. The striker rolled his man, who tried in vain to hold him, and rolled the ball in off the far post.
The rest of the half bore little but frustration for Leeds. James had a tame shot saved and a header cleared from the goalmouth and O’Nien was back at it, holding Meslier down and drawing Joe Rodon into a confrontation.
Farke joked before the game about Rodon never wanting to start attacks because he’s such a defender by nature but it was the centre-back storming forward with the ball and screaming at his team-mates over the lack of options as half-time approached with the score 1-0. For all their play and time spent in the Sunderland half, Leeds had precious little to show for it and the prevailing feeling was that Sunderland were doing a job on them.
The second half began as the first had with Meslier being tested. Hume ran onto Patrick Roberts’ clever curling scoop and volleyed straight into the keeper’s arms. Once again Leeds took over. They pressed high, they won the ball in good areas and kept the pressure on. Once again they struggled to create clear-cut chances from open play or a plethora of corners and free-kicks. The officials decided not to award penalties for a rugby challenge on Ao Tanaka and a debatable handball shout.
With 20 minutes to go it was decision time for Farke. Nelson Mandela once said ‘may your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears’ and on 71 minutes Farke turned to his bench as per usual. But his hope was for something different to the Leeds norm. On came central midfielder Joe Rothwell and centre-back Pascal Struijk, one with set-piece brilliance in his boots and the other with size and strength in the air.
Seven minutes later Rothwell curled in a beautiful free-kick and Struijk rose to glance home a header to make it 1-1. It was everything Farke had hoped for. But he wanted more. Having lined up Largie Ramazani and Mateo Joseph immediately prior to the goal, Farke had a decision to make. Stick or twist? Consolidate the point with Josuha Guilavogui and Sam Byram or go for the throat with the attackers primed and ready. On came Ramazani and Joseph.
The duo played their part in keeping Leeds up the pitch and getting the ball into areas where a chance might be created. Leeds had played so much football in the second half that it asked for a huge physical investment from the visitors. Jayden Bogle and James on the right relentlessly ran at Sunderland and probed for openings. The ball just kept coming back towards the men in red and white. By stoppage time they were punting the ball clear or simply into touch and hoping for a final whistle that, due to their own earlier time wasting, was not yet to come.
On and on Leeds pressed, camping in the Black Cats’ half and though the ball refused to drop on so many occasions, Sunderland finally ran out of lives. Rothwell’s corner from the right came all the way to Ramazani on the left and he shanked the ball right back to the taker. Rothwell shaped to cross with his right, decided to drop the shoulder and bring the ball onto his weaker foot and curled the ball beautifully to the back post where, inevitably, Struijk got up to head in a winner. Elland Road became the Stadium of Noise. Farke, his staff and substitutes danced on the pitch.
It had been a pugnacious affair and even the full-time celebrations had a hint of ugliness and confrontation but, like the game, it just about stayed within acceptable bounds. As Sunderland went off, Farke, his players and his staff gathered in a huddle and deliberately, collectively recognised the importance of the moment.
After the game Farke put the credit squarely on the shoulders of his players but he too must accept his fair share. For a substitution to work out that spectacularly says something. But for a team to persist in a plan with such patience says even more. It was Farkeball that exhausted Sunderland and kept the ball moving into the right areas, at the right times, to earn the set-pieces from which the goals came.
It was a night to remember, if you stayed to the brilliant end.
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