On January 1st, 2014, Blackburn Rovers came to Elland Road and I vowed never to go to a football match on New Year’s Day again. Blackburn beat Leeds 2-1 that day, but it wasn’t the result that was so dispiriting. It was the hangover, it was the sleepiness, it was the cold. It was mainly my friend Jonny buying a grey burger on the South Stand concourse at half-time, taking a bite, and immediately throwing up over his own shoes. Fuck that. Never again.

For 89 minutes of Leeds’ first game of 2025, I was sitting on the sofa feeling smug. New Year’s Day football is terrible. Told ya! But then Leeds were awarded a penalty. Pascal Struijk sent the ‘keeper the wrong way. Wilf Gnonto shoved Danny Batth over in the celebrations. Batth chased after him, then went up the other end for a corner and — oh so bloody predictably — scrambled an equaliser. Blackburn celebrated the full-time whistle like they’d won the league, and the added element of pantomime villainy that elevates football beyond 22 people kicking a bag of wind around made me wish I was there among the angst of Elland Road after all.

New year, same Leeds? Meh. Maybe. This was an eye-scratchingly bad watch, but it takes two to tango, and Blackburn more than played their part, killing time, pulling shirts, moaning at the ref, and leaving Brenden Aaronson with the makings of a black eye. And that was only the opening ten minutes. But they were also annoyingly well organised and irritatingly disciplined and focused in sticking to the plan, even if that plan never involved ‘trying to score a goal’ — at least until Leeds went ahead.

So it was over to Leeds, then, and that’s where the problems first and foremost began. In theory, Joe Rothwell returning to the team for a home game against opponents willing to defend and defend and defend should have helped, particularly with Ethan Ampadu only recently back from injury and needing protecting. But Rothwell’s ability to drive forward with the ball at his feet was only evidenced on a couple of occasions, and Leeds were guilty of being too passive in attack, missing Ampadu’s bite and aggression to win the second balls that Blackburn kept making their own.

That meant the playmaking kept falling on the shoulders of Joe Rodon, and while it can be fun to watch Big Joe telling his teammates to calm down while he marauds forwards and tries to pick a pass — he can be good at it! — there’s a reason he’s a centre-half and not an attacker. Rodon ended the game with 126 touches, more than double the amount he had in the win at Derby. Joel Piroe, by contrast, had only 21. It meant the game very quickly became a Champo quagmire played between both boxes. By half-time, both teams had managed to touch the ball in the opposition’s penalty area just three times each. To put it bluntly: nothing happened.

Blackburn employed some classic dark arts during yesterday’s game and John Eustace’s side executed their plan very effectively.

After looking through the time wasted numbers, here’s a brief breakdown of some of the key numbers…

#LUFC

[image or embed]

— LUFCDATA (@lufcdata.com) 2 January 2025 at 09:14

Leeds made amends for their first-half lethargy and ended the match with 33 touches in Blackburn’s penalty area. But for all their endeavour, the method remained unconvincing. With Sam Byram struggling at half-time, Max Wöber came on at left-back, only for Jayden Bogle to suffer a dead leg within minutes of the restart, forcing Ampadu to come on at right-back. Daniel Farke briefly toyed with the idea of introducing Gnonto in place of Rothwell at the same time, clearly tempted to hit the big ‘fuck around and find out’ button, only to tell Wilf to sit back down on the bench. Instead, he waited another twenty minutes for the safety of the seventy-minute mark before throwing Gnonto on alongside Mateo Joseph and Pat Bamford, but faltered in choosing Manor Solomon as one of the players to be replaced. All afternoon, Solomon looked like the only player on the pitch capable of creating a chance out of nothing, and moments earlier had beaten his full-back and flashed a ball across goal that Dan James failed to get a touch on with an empty net waiting for the opener.

It’s never a good sign when Farke shoves all the strikers on his bench up top and disbands with any semblance of shape, albeit the changes almost, sort of, kinda gave Leeds the impetus they needed to win the game. With Rothwell replaced and only Ao Tanaka protecting the defence, Blackburn had the encouragement to occasionally attack as space finally opened up for both sides. In a lopsided formation, Wöber was essentially playing as a left winger, forcing a good save with a fierce drive at the near post, and James finally started making inroads down the right after one of his quietest performances of the season.

Leeds still huffed and puffed, and it was a game crying out for a different option at 10. Aaronson has shown his hard-running qualities can impact a game in recent weeks, but with Rodon and Pascal Struijk launching attacks, Leeds were desperate for an attacking midfielder with the craft, guile, and imagination to drop deep, get the ball off the defenders, and do it themselves. Aaronson isn’t like Pablo Hernandez or Georgi Rutter; it would be unfair to hold that against him. But Leeds would make life easier for themselves if they find someone who is to help Aaronson out.

Whether such a player would have won Leeds this game will remain a mystery. Perhaps John Eustace is just Farke’s kryptonite in the same way Marcelo Bielsa was confounded by Garry Monk and Jesse Marsch by the entire Premier League. Regardless, Leeds gained a point more than they won in either of their previous two games against Eustace’s side, and have added another point to their tally at the top of the table as Burnley and Sheffield United also dropped points. Even better, Leeds don’t have to play Blackburn again in 2024/25. If things go to plan, we won’t be playing them next season, either. ⬢

(Photograph by Mark Fletcher, via Alamy)