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We’ve all had that debate in our own minds — and probably with friends — about whether the Premier League is really worth the hassle for Leeds United.
For large parts of our last few Premier League seasons, it’s been an utter slog. Then, all of a sudden, you get games like the 3-1 win against Chelsea and moments like Anton Stach’s equaliser against Liverpool — and I’m pretty certain the foundations of Elland Road nearly fell to bits when Ao Tanaka ghosted in at the far post to slot home in the 96th minute against Liverpool.
But before the last week or so, the sum total of our Premier League experience in front of fans since 2004 is two seasons fighting relegation — one unsuccessfully — and a few weeks reverting to type.
It’s hard not to take the lyrics of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Everybody Knows’ to heart, really:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded,
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed,
Everybody knows the war is over,
Everybody knows the good guys lost,
Everybody knows the fight was fixed,
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich,
That’s how it goes, everybody knows.
The antidote to that appears to be buried deep within the DNA of the club and embodied by every single fan — being a right set of bastards. In the words of Corporal Jones, they don’t like it up ‘em. The minute Calvert-Lewin scored at the Etihad, Jaka Bijol headed home against Chelsea and the penalty given against Liverpool, you could see the panic set in.
Having said all that, there is one thing I’ve noticed this season that I cannot abide by in any shape or form: the abysmal quality of punditry on show each and every week in the Premier League. Stuart Dallas excluded, of course, you wonderful, wonderful man.
It’s not exclusive to one broadcaster, one punditry team or one medium, because it appears to be pretty standard if you support any team that isn’t one the so-called ‘Big Six’.
Growing up, I held pundits and football experts in such high esteem that I wanted to be one of them. I had grand visions of sitting on gantries in a sheepskin coat, reeling off one-liners as Leeds knocked in yet another goal en route to their third title in a row. I know, I know.
What I’ve come to realise, however, is that the superficial level of knowledge a generic Premier League pundit has on any club that they didn’t play for or are outside the ‘Big Six’ is scarce to the point of being non-existent.
Otherwise, pundits seem to formulate an opinion based on watching a team once and letting everything else confirm their bias on that one outing.
Thankfully, we live in an era when fan media has reached a level where professional quality output is possible, so the reliance on broadcasters and media outlets to provide us with content isn’t the same anymore. But listen to any more general Premier League-styled podcast and you’ll find the most basic of opinions given far too much air time. All of which makes me wonder, if we know the stuff they’re saying about us is Grade A Waffle, is what they’re saying about everyone else the same level of nonsense?
The answer, undoubtedly, is yes.
Don’t get me wrong, I know cash is king and those advertising dollars need to be accounted for, but I hoped for a little more than ‘Leeds were good, opposition bad’ or vice versa in the Monday morning dissection of our games this season — or the analysis of Leeds vs Liverpool being utterly overshadowed by an interview from Mo Salah that’s mobilised multi-million pound PR teams on both sides of the argument.
Let’s think about that for a second: an interview — not the actual match that thousands of people turned up to watch because that’s what they care about. Y’know, actual football.
Sit through a full four or five hours of Super Sunday on Sky Sports or an evening of Monday Night Football and you’ll probably be comatose by the end of it. You’ll most likely hear the same things as you did the week before, and the week before that, too.
I don’t particularly mind MNF as a concept in itself but you rarely get analysis about anything other than Scum, Liverpool, Arsenal or the in-vogue ‘big team in crisis’ that particular week. In fact, it’s so predictable that you can create your own bingo card and join in a game of Premier League Pundit Bingo — maybe you can get the whole family to join in, create some great prizes and make a real day of it.
Just imagine the sheer joy on your nana’s face as Jamie Redknapp says, “He’s got to get tighter to his man, he lets him spin off,” as Ryan Gravenberch misses the ball and let’s it land at Tanaka’s feet to crash home an injury-time equaliser against the champions.
My favourite trope of pundits and commentators is lumping us in with the clubs who are classified as ‘Sleeping Giants’, teams with great fans who stick with their club through thick and thin and love their football up there. That could be anyone from Leeds to Sheffield Wednesday or Nottingham Forest.
Another classic trope that pundits, usually ex-managers, like to let everyone know is: “If you can keep the crowd quiet, they’ll start to get on their own players’ backs.” All that means in reality is that we’re a loud, vociferous crowd who teams need to factor into their thinking when coping with the atmosphere. Emotions work both ways (insert Daniel Farke “emotional fanbase” joke here) but a modicum of insight beyond the cliches would make a pleasant change.
Premier League punditry may well have always been crap, perhaps I was too neutral to care for such a long time that I hadn’t really noticed. It’s certainly always been pretty dull, but the more tuned in I am these days, the more I begin to realise that nobody really knows anything — and those that do don’t care too much about what’s happening down the end of the table we tend to be plying our trade.
And while this isn’t simply a long-winded plug for TSB (Ed: please don’t come to us expecting insightful analysis), there is a lot to be said for listening to people who share your hopes, fears, dreams and jelly-in-a-car-park-consuming anxiety-ridden breakdowns.
So the next time you head on that dog walk or commute, and you don’t have a TSB episode lined up, maybe just pop on The Best of Johnny Cash or that audiobook you’ve been meaning to get through. Worst of all, it doesn’t matter what division Leeds United are in, turns out we’ll never be able to escape Andy Hinchcliffe and Don Goodman. ⬢
