Crystal Palace 0-0 Leeds United: Capital punishment

A couple of minutes before Leeds kicked off at Selhurst Park, I walked through my front door having returned from a stag do the previous day in Nottingham. I thought I’d been saved from the pits of a hangover by spending the train journey home sitting opposite my friend Harry, who’d spent the night puking his guts up and by that point could barely lift his head from his chest. I might have been feeling rough, but at least I wasn’t that rough.

Harry, however, does not support Leeds United. (He’s from Grimsby, so naturally he supports Scum.) That meant he had the luxury of going home and straight to bed, whereas I spent the next ninety minutes mentally unravelling as the beer fear was compounded with a textbook case of LUFC capital punishment.

If you know anyone still gullible enough to keep drinking the Kool Aid of the Premier League being The Best League In The World™, then please show them this game. In the first half both sides were battling against their own — and each other’s — ineptitude. Karl Darlow tried his best to get caught with the ball at his feet. Jaka Bijol is meant to be Leeds’ Terminator but played so dozily it looked like someone had forgotten to press his on switch before the game. Crystal Palace passed a trendy short goalkick to a centre-half on the edge of his six-yard box only for him to scuff the ball straight out for a throw-in. ‘Keeper Walter Benitez was spared a gormless concession by the margin of a few millimetres after catching a tame Dominic Calvert-Lewin header while standing behind his own goalline.

To Leeds’ credit (just about), if either side was going to score, it was the visitors. Brenden Aaronson was gifted a chance in front of goal as Ismaila Sarr managed to spoon a header behind himself, but Aaronson weakly shot wide and has recently been in danger of reverting to his default lack of conviction following a stretch of good form.

For all the win was there for the taking if Leeds could just compose themselves for a period, the slapstick standard of play from both teams meant I was already fearing the worst when Calvert-Lewin stepped up to take a penalty after Will Hughes decided to try clearing a corner by punching the ball. With only a few minutes to go until half-time, Calvert-Lewin committed to the bit by stroking his spot-kick wide of the goal.

As if it wasn’t grim enough, there was still time for referee Thomas Bramall to join in the farce. I have sympathy for referees having to preside over 22 adult babies cheating, crying and conning their way through a game, as highlighted by Palace’s desperate attempts to get Bijol sent off for a second yellow card after the slightest of brushes with Sarr. But it’s impossible to defend officials when Leeds keep falling afoul of their brazen incompetence week after week.

Shortly after holding his nerve with Bijol, Bramall blew for a foul by Gabi Gudmundsson and quickly brandished a yellow card, having clearly forgotten Gudmundsson had already been booked. Did Bramall really think it was a bookable offence or was he trying to stamp his tenuous ‘authority’ on a game that was slipping away from his grasp? The panic spread across his face as Palace players had to tell him it was Gudmundsson’s second yellow provided the answer. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. What did I do that for?”

I felt like I needed to either launch my phone through the TV or sit in a dark room for a week. Perhaps none of this would have happened if Calvert-Lewin could’ve just hit the target from twelve yards, but the game still felt tipped ever so slightly in Leeds’ favour with eleven players on the pitch. In the space of a couple of minutes the world suddenly felt like it was falling in and fans were speculating online whether the second half was going to unravel like Leeds 1 Palace 5 in April 2023. After all, these are the kind of things that happen when you’re getting relegated.

Thankfully, Leeds are definitely made of sterner stuff this time around. Joe Rodon in particular was magnificent in defence and determined enough to keep marauding forward, creating Leeds’ best opportunity of the second half by storming down the right wing, keeping the ball in play and putting Anton Stach into space with a clever reverse pass. Alongside Rodon, Pascal Struijk was — as he so often is — quietly resolute, his calmness helping to settle down Bijol, who was lucky not to be sacrificed at half-time but unruffled after the break. In midfield, Ethan Ampadu was right at home in a dogfight, while James Justin continues to solve whatever problem he’s tasked with, seamlessly switching to left-back in Gudmundsson’s absence as Jayden Bogle was introduced on the opposite flank.

Bramall doubled down on his personal shitshow by refusing to send off Brennan Johnson for what, judging by his earlier standards with Gudmundsson, should have been his third bookable offence of the afternoon, but the sense of injustice helped fuel an away end that made Selhurst Park sound like Elland Road. Just because it’s no surprise doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be mentioned: Leeds’ fans were absolutely outstanding in the second half. The reaction of the players at full-time, alongside the many references to the support in the players’ social media posts afterwards, suggested the backing from the terraces more than played its part in helping combat the numerical disadvantage on the pitch. It shouldn’t be underestimated — that togetherness can take a club a long way.

But that very same sense of injustice is a double-edged sword. Yes, a point in such circumstances was a valuable, hard-fought positive on a weekend in which results elsewhere meant nothing changed in the relegation battle. But it’s also true that Palace remained chronic even with an extra player on the pitch, failing to have a single shot on target aside from Jefferson Lerma’s header that was ruled out for offside.

Going down to ten men was always going to mean Leeds would gladly have taken a point (enter Ilia Gruev, rather than, say, Sean Longstaff for instance). They’re probably right to have done so, but for the umpteenth time this season it feels like with just a touch more quality and nous they could have taken all three. Maybe that’s just the hangover talking. Or maybe sitting in a dark room for the rest of the week isn’t such a bad idea after all. ⬢