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When I close my eyes at night I dream of striking a football as sweetly as Anton Stach. From the daring of its imagination to the quite frankly sickening brutality and beauty of its execution, Stach’s free-kick at Villa Park is the type of goal I like to imagine myself scoring for Leeds United as I let my mind wander when I have more important things to do, or when I’m staring wistfully out of a train window, or when I’m sitting on the toilet.
It’s the type of sensation I trick myself into remembering as the rare occasions I also connected with a football properly when playing in local parks with jumpers for goalposts or five-a-side halls growing up. Yet deep down, I know those moments were even fewer that I care to admit, and are undermined by the fact that almost every time it was a complete fluke, a brief accident courtesy of the law of probability.
Anton Stach, on the other hand, meant it — and that meant it was all the more spectacular to everyone who witnessed it and went to bed dreaming of being talented enough to do the same.
I, however, did not witness it. Not at the time, anyway. I was sitting on a wooden bench up a cliff, drinking a pint outside Whitby Brewery hoping the rainclouds would quickly pass over. All I knew of the brilliance that had taken place in Birmingham was the update on BBC Sport’s live score: ‘Stach (31’)’. A weekend away with my girlfriend and her family was not quite the Leeds-United-stress-free experience I envisaged. As her dad constantly refreshed BBC Sport throughout the second half, I advised him to escape the terror by just ignoring it until full-time, even though my eyes were glued to his phone screen too.
The news that Tammy Abraham snatched a late equaliser felt inevitable. The confirmation of the final whistle brought relief tinged with disappointment. Once again, Leeds United had been so close to letting us all sleep much easier for the rest of the season, dreaming of Stach’s Goal of the Season competition with himself.
Watching the game back, I was expecting something of a smash and grab from Leeds. The nature of Stach’s goal, the yellow card next to Karl Darlow’s name and Villa’s 74% domination of possession suggested Leeds had gone to Villa Park and frustrated the hosts in the same way the landfill clubs of the Championship had tried — and mostly failed — when visiting Elland Road.
Yet as the game unfolded, I was once more struck by a Leeds performance that provided further evidence this is a very capable Premier League team.
For all Villa’s possession, the Peacocks largely held their opponents at arm’s length in a match played between the edges of both penalty areas. If anyone was more incisive, it was Leeds, Dominic Calvert-Lewin getting behind the defence early on only for his touch to take him too wide, forcing him to try to find Brenden Aaronson with defenders back to clear rather than shoot on goal. Shortly afterwards, a well-spotted pass from Jayden Bogle gave Calvert-Lewin a similar opportunity. This time his touch was much crisper, but Emi Martinez reacted quickly to smother his shot.
When Leeds picked their moments to attack, their football was reassuringly enterprising. Calvert-Lewin and Aaronson switched roles as the latter nudged a long ball upfield back to the big striker dropping into space and feeding Gabi Gudmundsson surging forward from the left. After Gudmundsson cut inside and tried to find the corner, his shot was blocked, but Leeds’ forays were enough to make the home crowd restless. With Villa finding increasingly laughable ways to make intricate set-piece routines look completely brainless, swinging crosses straight out of play or to the feet of Leeds players, the only moment of danger came when Bogle didn’t hear Karl Darlow’s shout to claim a ball as Emi Buendia’s lob from outside the box dropped wide.
That set the scene for Stach to step forward and leave Tony Dorigo almost choking in surprise at his second screamer of a free-kick this season. Dorigo eventually regained enough composure to simply splutter, “Oh my god!” Had Gruev found the same top corner a few minutes later rather than sweep a shot from the edge of the penalty area narrowly over the bar then Dorigo may have been too stunned to ever speak again.
Villa did end the half with a word of warning for Leeds, Amadou Onana reaching Tyrone Mings’ flick on at the back post, drawing an excellent stop from Darlow and even finer goalkeeping to swat the loose ball away from the ground while everyone else was waiting for someone to tap it into the net.
The second half followed a similar pattern, Leeds restricting Villa to efforts from long range, including another from Buendia that Darlow tipped onto the post with his second fine save that got overlooked as Ollie Watkins’ subsequent tap in was ruled out by an offside flag.
Five minutes later, Daniel Farke made the change I wanted him to make a month ago at Everton, introducing a second striker in Lukas Nmecha to help drag Leeds up the pitch rather than settle for defending a lead in their own half. It almost instantly worked better than anyone could have hoped as Bogle — who in recent weeks has made himself Leeds’ prime creative hub from wing-back, like the lovechild of Pablo Hernandez and Bill Ayling — swung a deep, pinpoint cross into the box and onto the forehead of a diving Nmecha. Perhaps if it hadn’t been the striker’s very first touch then the outcome would have been different. Instead, he nodded it too close to Martinez.
Leeds still had more opportunities, Calvert-Lewin toepoking an improvised attempt at Martinez and Rodon spooning a free header into the air from a free-kick when Calvert-Lewin was lurking behind him waiting to score, but Nmecha’s diving header was The Moment, leaving Leeds open to a late equaliser as cruel as Ezra Konsa meeting a corner at the back post and the ball looping off Abraham’s knee and up and over Calvert-Lewin on the goal line.
It’s too tempting to wonder how different Leeds’ season could have been had they held on to a number of winning positions only to be forced to settle for a draw. “Yes, probably we would fight for Europe,” Farke said afterwards, albeit while remaining typically level-headed. “We have also scored several late goals.”
Farke was more bothered about praising his “warriors”, and he’s right to do so. These are the results that have transformed Leeds’ season and Farke’s career prospects. United won three of their first thirteen Premier League games up to and including the day everything changed at Man City. Since then, their victories have come at only a slightly better rate, four of fourteen. But Leeds have created a buffer between themselves and the relegation zone by continuously making sure they are hard to beat, drawing eight times since December compared to just twice in the first four months of the season.
Ultimately, this season is about staying up, and a point at Villa Park was another small step to doing just that. Keep this up, and we can worry about taking the bigger steps to Europe next year. ⬢
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