If Leeds United’s season has been lacking a plot twist, then Saturday morning at least provided a minor one. News of Junior Firpo’s three-match ban took everyone by surprise and was largely met with derision from Leeds fans, but I was grateful for something different to think about other than the prospect of a predictably comfortable 2-0 win against relegation fodder who were always going to arrive at Elland Road determined to defend and kill time, even if they were losing.

Leeds need some skullduggery to add a bit of spice to this season. An EFL conspiracy here, a Millwall grass there. Maybe the authorities should just hit us with a points deduction so we can really play the hits. In the absence of a legal challenge, dickhead ref Matt Donohue was more than happy to make himself the pantomime villain of the afternoon, seemingly deciding that the 36,000 in attendance had paid their hard-earned money to watch him and his assistants officiate the game.

If the sign of a good referee is a match passing by without noticing them, then Donohue spectacularly failed, blowing his whistle whenever a game of football threatened to break out. Somewhere in his home of Greater Manchester (shock horror), Donohue is sitting around, drinking a coffee, still tooting away on his favourite toy. I’ve barely been able to get anything done since, my mind conditioned into stopping any task I’ve been getting on with and starting all over agai…

[WHISTLE BLOWN! FREE-KICK!]

…sorry, Matt. Anyway, what was I saying?

Thankfully Leeds never really looked dozy enough to drop any silly points against a QPR team so timid they were content to sit back and watch United play walking football for most of the game. The result was decided in the space of three slapstick minutes a quarter of an hour in, by which point Donohue had already flashed the softest yellow card of the season at Firpo’s late replacement at left-back, Sam Byram. First Brenden Aaronson pinged a surprisingly well-struck shot onto the crossbar, followed by Pascal Struijk contriving to completely miss the ball when presented with a free header from Manor Solomon’s only good cross of the afternoon.

[SHRILL BLAST!]

Come on, ref. I’m getting to the good bit!

By the time Leeds finally put the ball in the net to open the scoring a minute later, Farke was crouching by the touchline looking like he was about to be sick, before eventually standing back upright, rubbing his face, and offering a wry smile. The goal was created by Joe Rothwell getting bored of fannying around and surging into space on the left-hand side of the penalty area, chipping a cross to the back post, where it was met first by Solomon’s wild volley back into the air, then a touch by Wilf Gnonto, a shot from Mateo Joseph cleared off the line, and ultimately an ungainly swing of Jayden Bogle’s left boot that sliced it into the top corner.

United thought they had doubled their lead before half-time, only for…

[FLAG UP!]

…Byram to have been ruled offside after being played into the box by Aaronson, where his pass gave Solomon a tap-in. (To be fair to the lino, it was the right call.) Byram nearly made it 2-0 himself, meeting Ao Tanaka’s cross to the back post — the pass of the game — but heading narrowly wide.

In a laborious second half, Leeds kept finding different ways to keep QPR mildly interested, fluffing opportunities with either a poor final ball, weak attempts at goal, or by being caught offside again and again.

Leeds and Farke are victims of their own circumstance at this stage of the season. Nobody at the club wants to be involved in this godforsaken division, but until the stakes get higher and the tension rises towards the end of the campaign, the atmosphere in the stadium is matching the performances on the pitch — a sense of going through the motions and ticking each fixture off the list one by one against opponents unwilling to introduce an element of jeopardy even at a ground that can become notoriously twitchy.

Even with the benefit of a referee ruining any momentum…

[PIERCING SHRIEK! DISSENT!]

…okay, fine. Whatever. I’m nearly done…

QPR were so subservient that when Tanaka briefly stopped with the ball at his feet while he waited for his midfield partner Rothwell to shake off a knock, nobody on the visitors’ team bothered to try tackling him and just stood still watching him instead.

Once again, it was left to Joel Piroe to come off the bench and poach a goal that let everyone go home feeling slightly less exasperated, and leave Donohue to blow his whistle one final time. ⬢