Until The World Stops Going Round

This week: The pendulum swings, Farke red card, boos, shit refs, the cup run continues.

City cheats

A couple of days can seem like a long time in football, so 2 weeks feels like an eternity. It's been 15 days since Leeds were held to what looked like a decent point against Villa, but two 1-0 defeats in the subsequent matches have darkened the mood at Elland Road.

The two back-to-back losses against City and Sunderland respectively have seen the clouds of doom quickly formulate in our collective mind. There's no shame in losing to a Man City - a team financially doped up to their eyeballs. The problem is that Leeds really could've taken something from the game; they made City work for their win as was evidenced by the fact that City's players collapsed to the ground exhausted as the final whistle blew. Their heart rates haven't hit those sorts of heights since the 115 charges dropped.

The 'dark arts' (or, cheating), a cornerstone of City's performance against us at the Etihad, were once again on display. I still can't believe that anyone is surprised by this; as if a team with such a blatant disregard for rules and decency off the pitch would somehow play the game in the right 'spirit' on it.

Shit refs pt.1

To make things worse, at the end of the game, Farke jogged onto the pitch to confront referee Peter Bankes regarding his inept performance. Rather than meet Farke with a level of professionalism that should be expected of a Premier League referee, Bankes inexplicably brandished Farke a red card. It was a complete act of cowardice from Bankes, who would never have had the nerve to do the same to Guardiola or Arteta.

Backwards booing

The result wasn't the only sour note that night; as the referee blew for a pre-arranged break to allow the Muslim players on the pitch a chance to break their Ramadan fast, boos rang out around Elland Road in what was a very depressing, but not unexpected, reaction. Of course, many people will not have been aware what the referee had blown for, and were booing yet another ‘injury’ stoppage that would allow Pep to give one of his micro-managing team-talks. Then there will be the people who booed because other people were booing, such is the tribalistic nature of football.

Unfortunately, though, there will also have been plenty who knew exactly what the break was for and decided to boo anyway in a shameful show of intolerance; those that booed because 'Muslims' are a stain on Leeds United. You only have to look at a toxic cesspit that is Musk's twitter, to see some of the rampant racism in relation to the incident. Too many act as if being an intolerant prick is a badge of honour.

Leeds fans, and the city as a whole, have a proud history of anti-facism and anti-racism; from standing up to Oswald Mosely's British Union of Fascists, to fans fighting back against the National Front as they tried to gain a foothold within the Leeds support by punting their shit-rag outside the ground.

Like I said, the reaction wasn't wholly unexpected: football is often a mirror of society, and with the rise in popularity of right-wing grifters like Farage, Lowe, and Yaxley-Lennon it's hardly shocking to see these views voiced inside football stadiums. 

Shit refs pt.2

Leeds followed up the City loss with possibly the bleakest game of football all season; Sunderland, 18th in the away form table at the time, came to spoil, and that's exactly what they did. For the second game in a row, the referee was shit. I can’t even be bothered to look up the fucking idiots name if i’m being honest; he was shit, that’s all we need to know. Time after time the game was stopped as yet another player in red and white stripes hit the turf. It was a truly terrible spectacle that saw Sunderland unjustly rewarded with a penalty in the 70th minute. Obviously, they scored. This was made worse by the fact that Struijk was not awarded one after he was choke-slammed to the ground by Luke O'Nien. It was an utterly dross match that seemed to encapsulate everything that is wrong with modern football.

Won’t someone think of the ‘product’?

A lot has been made of the Premier League's 'product' this season. Set-pieces have come to prominence this season, and 'game-management' comes to the fore whenever a team has a lead to protect. It's hard to be too upset at the teams who engage in these types of frustrating tactics; nothing they are doing is against the rules. Plus, if Leeds pick up 3 crucial points playing in the exact same way, we'll all be fucking delighted.

All the while, football prices are sky-rocketing. It'd be nice to think that eventually people will start to vote with their feet, forcing the powers that be to finally step in and enforce some much needed changes. But seeing as we keep swallowing the shit sandwich served up to us in all other aspects of modern life, I won't hold my breath.

The Cup run continues

Finally, we ended our losing streak with a win against our 6-fingered Championship friends of old, Norwich, in the FA Cup 5th round. In doing so, Leeds have progressed to the quarter-finals for the first time in 23 years (which is quite a damning indictment of Leeds' performances in the cups)

West Ham, and a trip to the worst 'football' stadium in the world, stand between us and the semi-finals. West Ham seem to have turned a corner form-wise recently, and to rub salt into our collective wounds, Summerville has been at the heart of that. Ideally we wouldn't be facing them until our last day encounter to avoid any unhelpful 'narratives'. The cup draws are rarely kind to us, so I'm not surprised to see us drawn away to West Ham, but let's face it, it could've been worse.

The comfortable win over Norwich gave us a much needed lift after 2 really disappointing results. We now have a week long break before we travel to Palace, who have improved, but are by no means unbeatable. The recent league losses has led to a lot of melodramatic doom-mongering amongst some fans, but it's certainly not a desperate situation to be in. There's plenty of distance left to run  this season, and plenty of time for the pendulum to swing back in our favour.