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Burnley 0-0 Leeds United: Roll up! Roll up!

Written by: Rob Conlon
Joe Rodon in the yellow away shirt at Burnley, scowling, obviously, because he's always scowling

There I was, thinking Leeds and Burnley would have been better off shaking hands ahead of kick off after agreeing they were both happy to settle for a point, saving everyone a lot of time and effort. But then I saw national newspapers had sent their journalists to Turf Moor, and, well, isnโ€™t it just delicious?

โ€˜For generations to come in Lancashire and Yorkshire thousands will tell people โ€œI was thereโ€ to see the match where the least action in the history of football took place,โ€™ begins Will Unwin in The Guardian. โ€˜Burnley and Leeds are supposed to be fighting for promotion but they produced a solitary shot on target between them in a desperate goalless draw.โ€™

Elsewhere, in The Independent, Richard Jolly likened the affair to โ€˜a grim northern drama of a match, an exercise in downbeat realismโ€™, while Ross Heppenstall called it a โ€˜damp squib where the football was as filthy as the weatherโ€™ in The Telegraph. Even our mate Beren Cross has started his new gig at The Athletic with โ€˜one of the greatest anticlimaxes in recent memoryโ€™. And I thought Wembley was bad.

After all that, Iโ€™d just like to say: ha! Seriously, lads, what were you expecting?! This is Burnley, whose manager looks like he should be selling Huel and afterwards was saying things like, โ€œIt smelled like 0-0 and thatโ€™s what it was.โ€ And this is Leeds United, who have spent the past century welcoming the national press with a collective fuck off, so to see us continuing that fine tradition fills me with pride.

Sure, this wasnโ€™t a classic. But it was never going to be. Leeds went to Burnley knowing a point would be a perfectly fine result, and Burnley welcomed Leeds thinking exactly the same. For all Sky Sports tried to hype the fixture up as the leagueโ€™s best defence hosting its best attack, it was also the team that has conceded the fewest goals in the league against the team that has conceded the fewest shots on target. Even pundit Ben Mee, the most โ€˜Burnley defenderโ€™ in the history of Burnley defenders, was left asking whether his former club might have fancied being a bit more ambitious.

Despite the hosts needing a win to leapfrog Sheffield United into the automatic promotion places, by the end of the game Leeds appeared the only team even mildly interested in taking all three points. It took until the 87th minute for Jayden Bogle to have the first shot of the second half, and even that was blocked by a defender and sent for a corner, from which Dan James snapped a half-volley that forced James Trafford into the only save of the night.

Illan Meslier had earlier made a sharp stop from last seasonโ€™s loanee Jaidon Anthony, but it didnโ€™t trouble the stats after a foul had been called on Joe Rodon in the build up. In a cagey, tense battle, the officials rose to the challenge, determined to extinguish the briefest moments of excitement. In the second half, Bogle volleyed wide but a free-kick was given after Joel Piroe was flagged offside; Anthony flashed a ball across goal but was similarly flagged for something or other; and Ethan Ampadu was penalised for an inch-perfect reducer on Josh Brownhill, which should have been the highlight of the game until the ref ruined it by getting involved.

It was another game that highlighted why Daniel Farke is keen to add either a striker or number 10 to his squad before the end of the transfer window. Piroe was once again stuck playing on half-speed; a useful quality when heโ€™s presented with a chance in front of goal, but the rest of the time you just want to press fast forward on him. Brenden Aaronson, meanwhile, was Brenden Aaronson โ€” although maybe itโ€™s harsh to judge both players when facing a defence that has conceded just nine league goals all season, a figure so stingy even Farke must look across at Scott Parker and wonder whether he might be better off not being so cautious and living a little rather than sitting two banks of four on the edge of his own penalty area.

Farke himself was never going to let Leeds off the leash, leaving potential game-changers Junior Firpo, Joe Rothwell, and Wilf Gnonto on the bench in preference of sensible solidity from Sam Byram, Ilia Gruev, and Dan James. After Piroe came close to matching his nadir of the even more dour draw at West Brom, Mateo Joseph was introduced alongside Largie Ramazani as Farke waited until exactly the 70th minute to make a change, but Joseph is hardly quelling calls that Leeds would be better off signing a new striker with his own struggles to control a football.

But whatever. Those worries are a luxury when youโ€™re top of the table. For all the angst, United got what they wanted, returning to Leeds an extra point closer to promotion, with none of their rivals having gained ground over the weekend. โ€œI wouldn’t say it was the sexiest piece of football today,โ€ Farke said afterwards. But as the away end showed in its positive reception of the players at full-time, it was a valuable result, whether it failed to impress some journos in the press box or not. โฌข

(Photograph by Pat Scaasi, via Alamy)

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