Joyscroll
The Fab Four
The morning of the Swansea game started the same as every midweek morning: pressing the snooze button on my alarm as many times as it takes until I’m mentally prepared for a doomscroll on my phone. The previous night, in both the Champions League and Championship, goals had been flying in. It should have made for a fun morning of social media, particularly if Barnsley’s stoppage time winner against Wycombe was anything to go by.
Perhaps I’ve only got myself to blame for expecting Twitter to provide some escapism from a freezing Wednesday morning. More fool me. Instead, I scrolled past a post on the statistical differences in VAR use across European leagues, a link to an article ‘analysing new tactical trends — kicking off with Notts County’s short corners’, and another explaining ‘Premier League goalkeepers are passing straight to the opposition a lot more — but this is to be expected. Football has changed.’
Football has changed, that much is true. Being a football fan has changed too. People are interested in football for lots of different reasons, and we’re given more information on more aspects of the sport than ever before. Lots of interesting things come from niche topics, but I’m not sure what’s niche in football anymore — the above posts weren’t by René Maric, they were from The Times, ESPN, and The Athletic. Sometimes I wonder if we’re missing the point and ignoring what actually makes football fun. Basically, does anyone really give a fuck about Notts County taking short corners?
Georginio Rutter makes football fun. So do Crysencio Summerville, Joel Piroe, and Dan James. Because of that, waking up on Thursday morning was much easier, knowing I could ease into the day with a joyscroll of love for Leeds’ Fab Four, still feeling the glow of another three points next to our name on the Championship table. I didn’t have to worry about how Premier League goalkeepers are passing the ball, because I could watch Georginio Rutter controlling Ethan Ampadu’s pass like the ball was a cat falling from a tree onto a pillow 100 times before I’d even got out of bed.
It’s not to be taken for granted. Even after Leeds appointed Daniel Farke as manager, the summer was so uncertain nobody knew what to expect from United this season. Farke’s cleansing of the past two years at Elland Road has been so effective we’re already at the point of comparing each result with the Championship’s top two. But that means we’re in danger of missing the fun too. It’s a long season. There’ll be plenty of time to stress in the New Year, so let’s make the most of being able to watch Leeds not be at their best and still win 3-1, because we’ve got a forward line that has become the fear of the division simply because of their capacity to take the piss.
Georginio is the most obvious source of joy, a Harlem Globetrotter of a striker creating goal after goal for his teammates and celebrating his own by pretending he’s Harry Potter casting a spell over everyone in the stadium. Maybe that was Georginio’s way of revealing his secrets. Maybe it really is just pure wizardry. Summerville is never far behind, treating Champo defences like the chumps he used to leave chasing in the Under-21s.
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At 26, Dan James is the senior member of the quartet, but still looks like the boyband hopeful who never got the phone call he craved when his dream was crushed in the offices of the East Stand four years ago. By keeping Willy Gnonto out of the team, James adds an underdog story to the attack’s cult status — Charlie Taylor might’ve been the most talented defender at Leeds under Garry Monk, but the back four we sang about that season was ‘Luke Ayling and Berardi, Pontus Jansson and Kyle Bartley’. Plus, James is fast. Really fast. In the words of Muhammad Ali, he’s so fast that he turned off the light switch in his hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark. Except The Greatest would have shanked that chance against Swansea; James stuck it in the top corner.
I’m not sure whether Joel Piroe is fast or not, because I’m not sure whether I’ve seen him sprint yet. He might be the coolest of the lot. The problem with so much information is that it will never be able to explain an enigma like Piroe. He’s a goalscoring number 9 wearing the number 7 and playing as a number 10. The maths doesn’t make sense, but the only numbers anyone should care about are his goals every other game. The vivid pictures painted by Georginio and co are all the brighter because of Piroe’s shading, lurking in the shadows waiting for the ball to drop where he can put it in the net.
The most exciting thing is that they’re all still getting to know each other. When Piroe was asked about playing as a number 10 while appearing on the Official Leeds United Podcast, he started smirking. “I know I can bring more,” he said. “I haven’t shown my full capacity yet. That’s something that needs a little bit of time. It’s not only me that needs to know the players. The players need to get to know me a little bit more as well. I wouldn’t say we’re fully working together yet as well as we will be towards the end.”
Just thinking about how much fun he could be having with his new mates by the end of the season made Piroe start laughing. Football might have changed, but it remains at its best when Leeds United scoring goals makes us all feel like giddy children. ⬢
