Leeds United 0-1 Chelsea: No hoodoo

Of course there was a stat. Leeds United: the first club to lose four consecutive games at Wembley without scoring. Breaking the records you really don’t want to break since 1919. The team where unwanted history becomes official.

Four games. 360 minutes. Six hours. It takes some doing to play football for that long and not score a goal, and I’ve watched Steve Morison and Billy Paynter play up front for Leeds. Except as a winless run it’s… not that long really. Leeds have gone four games or more without a win three times already this season. Earlier this month, in rugby league, the New Zealand Warriors finally snapped a seventeen-match losing “hoodoo” against the Melbourne Storm, after which their coach Andrew Webster said: “[It wasn’t] a hoodoo, I’d call it a streak.” And that’s all Leeds losing at Wembley is. A streak. There is no curse, just four games in isolation spread over thirty years.

The problem for Leeds at Wembley is that it’s about so much more than those four games, let alone a one-off ninety minutes. A visit to Wembley also evokes memories of losing a play-off final 3-0 to Watford even though that was in Cardiff, likewise a play-off final defeat to Charlton in Birmingham. This being a semi-final meant you could also throw in the emotional baggage of your choosing — Derby 2019, Millwall 2009, Coventry 1987. Drinking in a pub before kick-off when spirits were still high and everyone was convincing themselves this time was going to be different, my old man was chatting to our Dean’s dad reminiscing about losing to Scum in the 1977 FA Cup semi-final. We’re proud of these bruises for toughening us up as football supporters, even if it only takes a gentle prod for them to start stinging again and feel as fresh as ever.

So what to make of Leeds United’s latest defeat at the national stadium? I’ve read and heard the usual tired catchphrases in the intervening 48 hours. “We didn’t turn up when it mattered.” “That’s on Farke, that is.” As I left the hotel after recording The Match Ball, a fan walked past and shouted over too late, “Give ‘em hell, Rob!” But I’d felt little need to call for the devil when it simply felt like another day in purgatory.

Perhaps those cliches are true. After all, it isn’t saying much that this might have been Leeds’ best performance of those four defeats. These games tend to be decided by the finest of margins — as wretchedly insipid as United were against Doncaster and Southampton, they still only lost 1-0 — and for once Leeds created moments to swing the match in their favour. None more so than Brenden Aaronson being put through on goal by Dominic Calvert-Lewin as two Chelsea defenders attempted to tackle each other.

The similarity to Adam Armstrong’s chance that settled the play-off final two years ago was eerie. It really was The Moment. A brilliant opportunity to put Leeds ahead — and score a fucking goal at Wembley! — while inciting the recent angst engulfing Chelsea. But if you have ever observed Aaronson practising his shooting in warm-ups ahead of games, you won’t have been surprised by the outcome. He can’t do it, and didn’t here, hitting Robert Sanchez’s foot rather than the bottom corner, which is why everyone found his ruthless finishes against Scum and Newcastle earlier this season so hard to believe.

By that point the game had already settled into its rhythm of Chelsea calmly keeping the ball, freed up by no longer having to stomach Liam Rosenior’s word soup. Aside from that early slip, their centre-halves nullified Calvert-Lewin physically, while at the other end of the pitch Joao Pedro’s movement was giving United’s defence a headache, the striker hitting the near post after getting behind James Justin following a sloppy clearing header from Jaka Bijol. Lost in the middle of those two battles between attack and defence, Ethan Ampadu and Ao Tanaka could never get close enough to their opposite numbers in midfield.

Shortly afterwards, Pascal Struijk was nudged by Pedro Neto when challenging for a hoof forward then clumsily lost the ball to Pedro, who gave it back to Neto on his right. With Leeds’ defence out of shape, Neto crossed for Enzo Fernandez to head past Lucas Perri while standing unmarked between James Justin and Jayden Bogle. Eight minutes apart, Aaronson’s miss and Struijk’s dithering ultimately defined the fine margins that Leeds keep falling the wrong side of on days like these.

At the half-time whistle, Joe Rodon and Anton Stach immediately began preparing to be introduced from the bench in a rare case of early changes from Daniel Farke. The switch to four at the back so Leeds could match Chelsea man for man helped United gain a foothold after the break, Stach hammering a shot from the edge of the box that was tipped over for a corner within a minute of entering the pitch. But it remained too familiar a story. Too much muddled thinking, too many uncharacteristically poor first touches (Jayden Bogle, I’m looking at you), too often set-pieces wasted. In a rare moment of clarity, Noah Okafor made a yard of space for himself on the left wing and floated a cross towards Calvert-Lewin, finally in between defenders, only to head his attempt too close to Sanchez and into the goalkeeper’s hands.

It might feel desperate to cling to those Aaronson and Calvert-Lewin chances as proof this wasn’t the usual Wembley no-show. But I’m also clinging onto Chelsea’s actions in the second half and their own desperation in asking Sanchez to sit down so Calum McFarlane could have a word with the rest of his team, only to be rightly interrupted by Ampadu making a mockery of the whole thing by heading over for a drink of water and a spot of eavesdropping. For once, Leeds at least gave the opposition something to think about.

As dispiriting as the day was, a billion pound squad narrowly beating a newly-promoted team playing in their first FA Cup semi-final in four decades just doesn’t feel like the same old Leeds to me. If United really are back, then it’s time to believe that days like this aren’t once in a generation moments or only reserved for play-off finals after relegations. If we’ve proved anything to ourselves it’s that FA Cup campaigns don’t need to end in third round defeats to lower league opposition. And if we’ve learned anything it’s that if we’re ever going to score at Wembley we need to keep coming back for more, even if all I want to do right now is fast forward to Friday night and get back home to Elland Road. ⬢