Who put Firpo in De Bock shoo Bock shoo Bock?

Hopefully Laurens De Bock was watching Leeds United’s 0-0 draw with Brighton on Saturday evening, to understand why his ears were burning.

It took less than ten minutes for Leeds fans to start wondering whether Junior Firpo was going to make it to half-time before being substituted off, as the performance of United’s new left-back was already registering on the official De Bock Scale. Leeds have had plenty of terrible left-backs over the years, and many of them were worse than De Bock, but he really owns that space for ‘terrible individual display’ owing to his performance in a 2-2 draw with Derby in February 2018.

I watched that game back to see if Firpo can at least claim he wasn’t as bad as De Bock. While Firpo looked like he was playing with his boots on the wrong way round right from kick-off against Brighton, back in 2018 De Bock more slowly warmed to his theme, creating two half chances for Pablo Hernandez and Stuart Dallas early on. It wasn’t until thirteen minutes had passed that LDB was lashing at thin air while attempting a clearance, like Shane Lowry appearing from a haunted jack in the box. Surprise!

To his credit, De Bock had already warned us what to expect when he joined Leeds a month earlier and declared the main weakness of his game was struggling to concentrate for ninety minutes. As the first half was about to end, with Leeds leading 1-0, he forgot about the man he was meant to be marking, Andy Weimann, competing for a header instead with his captain, Liam Cooper. Having to challenge Derby’s striker as well as his own left-back, Cooper could only let the ball skim off his head. It landed at the feet of Weimann, with nobody around him, who equalised.

Despite pundit Andy Hinchcliffe getting more and more exasperated with De Bock as the half progressed — he started one sentence with the phrase, “I’m not always looking to pick on Laurens De Bock, but…” — Paul Heckinbottom was focusing too much on Leeds wi’ ball and not enough wi’out. In his third game as Leeds boss, Hecky had loaded the bench with attackers, leaving himself no option but to let De Bock back on the pitch for the second half. A frightening back pass almost gave Derby a second goal, but it looked like De Bock was going to end on the winning team anyway as Gjanni Alioski (still a right winger at this time) came off the bench to score late on. Derby equalised in injury time, and the best that can be said is it wasn’t Laurens’ fault. The worst that can be said is De Bock was subsequently dropped for Vurnon Anita and, in the 45 months since, he has played just once more competitively for Leeds. Yes, De Bock is still technically a Leeds player (until his contract expires this coming summer), spending a second consecutive season on loan at Zulte Waregem, who coincidentally have the worst defensive record in Belgium’s top flight.

De Bock’s possession of the Best Single Award owes itself to a seven-minute string of errors after his 13th minute airkick. He loses his man at the back post twice, a forewarning of Derby’s opener; he smashes a cross from a promising position out for a throw-in; he gives the ball away in his own half with Derby taking every opportunity to run at him. Seven minutes is all it can take to ruin a player’s full ninety, as Firpo found out when being booked and bypassed for two Brighton chances this weekend.

Maybe this is just a Leeds United rite of passage Firpo has to experience. Alioski reminded everyone why we needed to buy somebody like Firpo in the first place by playing dreadfully at Brighton last year, and Stuart Dallas has had his own shaky moments despite generally making the position more secure. Firpo is still trying to settle at a new club and hasn’t been helped by injuries, Covid, and joining Leeds after growing accustomed to only training at Barcelona when Lionel Messi could be arsed. After thirty minutes at Tottenham, his performance at Brighton serves as a good advert for why Marcelo Bielsa likes players returning from injury to gradually build back to full match fitness in the Under-23s (and is a warning we can’t expect Luke Ayling and Patrick Bamford to instantly solve all our problems once fully recovered).

If Firpo needs some inspiration about how he can survive and maybe even thrive at Leeds, he could do worse than going back to watch De Bock’s nightmare against Derby and paying attention to the person playing on the opposite side of Leeds’ defence. Gaetano Berardi had plenty of tough moments that season — three red cards! — but governed the right flank with discipline and diligence. It wasn’t sexy. Leeds always craved more in attack when Berardi played at full-back. But by getting the basics right he made the right side of the defence look serene compared to the tempest engulfing De Bock. If only Berardi was still around, he could teach Firpo that just because a player registers on the De Bock Scale doesn’t mean they can never get off. Life on loan in Belgium is not the only way forward. But it’s a choice only Firpo himself can make. ⬢