Accrington Stanley 1-3 Leeds United: Through • The Square Ball

In the moment

Accrington Stanley 1-3 Leeds United: Through

Leeds United went to Accrington and went into the fifth round of the FA Cup, efficiently if not joyfully, and given the fun has usually been at our expense in these situations that’s good. Feels odd, though. When the world’s oldest cup competition meets football’s tiredest joke the results are supposed to be more chaotic than this and part of me feels a little cheated. Jesse Marsch keeps insisting that he’s here to change this about Leeds United: “I’ve heard this a lot … [that] we always think we have to do it the hard way. Honestly, part of the job of being the manager of this club is to change that mentality.” But better coaches than him have demurred to the weight of our history, settling for adding something instead of changing things. It’s brave of him to try but I’ve never been keen on the idea and this game is why. The FA Cup. Live on the BBC on a cold Saturday lunchtime. Lower league opposition, away from home, a club owned by a Leeds fan with a Leeds fan in the team. This was supposed to go a certain way, but didn’t, and so what was I supposed to do? Be happy about it and enjoy the rest of my day? This is not the Leeds United I fell in love with, etcetera.

We could pick holes in the performance but this game wasn’t about that. It didn’t only not go as giantkillingly as expected, but it went as close as possible to the script for dealing with an awkward cup tie, Leeds United playing their proper part at the proper times as the Premier League club against a League One side. Accrington, full of enthusiasm for the fixture, started best and controlled the first twenty minutes, aiming long range dips at glory at Illan Meslier, dragging Luis Sinisterra into a battle of fouls down the wing. Then Jackie Harrison put a stop to all that, drilling a shot from 25 yards into the bottom corner and hardly celebrating it, because it was all business. A good goal at the right time.

The second half was the same, Stanley reinvigorated by reaching half-time only one goal down and coming out strong for an equaliser they should have got, if Leeds fan Harvey Rodgers had been more composed when the ball dropped to him. Leeds started getting and missing their own chances, until Pat Bamford’s clever reverse pass inside the penalty area set Junior Firpo up to score the goal he always threatens when he plays in a Marsch selection. Luis Sinisterra added a third when Marc Roca sent Harrison into Stanley’s half while it only had one Stanley defender in it, his cool pass across finished by Luis ahead of Pat, Georginio Rutter approving at the far post.

Accrington were tiring after needing extra-time in midweek to get past Boreham Wood and get this game on, but a combination of Leeds’ subs, theirs, and some lazy ball watching after Meslier parried a long range potshot let Leslie Adekoya pull one back with his first touch. Accrington had prepared well for Leeds’ known weaknesses, so we got a certain amount of familiar trouble: balls behind the full-backs, diagonals to the back post, falling asleep against short free-kicks, conceding a corner from our own corner, when Meslier had to make a save. As against Cardiff, the midfield lacked a certain Tyler Adamsness, and the boy referee, Josh Smith, was no help to anybody.

Once Harrison had taken the confusion out of the early stages, though, the subplot we wanted was allowed to bloom, record signing Rutter making a good impression on his debut. He tackled and competed, two prerequisites, then got on the ball and ran with it, in keeping with his publicity. He shot rustily, in keeping with his lack of recent games, but kept going lustily, not shy about the unglamorous match. Pat Bamford fought his way through 77 minutes too, throwing himself down for free-kicks and penalties refboy wouldn’t give, winning duels and setting up teammates, and being heard on the BBC microphones on a Saturday lunchtime calling one Accrington player a “fucking daft twat”. It’s getting more and more tempting to believe he might be back for good this time. Another comebacker, Sinisterra, popped one surprise shot off the post as a reminder of the helpful qualities he was putting up before injury, like against Barnsley and Everton when Leeds needed a goal so he scored one. His goal here wasn’t totally necessary — United’s third — but it definitely helped.

Let’s not remember this game as totally without chaos, though. The match might have been serene, but on Twitter, The Athletic’s David Ornstein was doing his best to be disruptive. Five minutes after kick-off, he declared in a tweet that Leeds United’s moves to sign Weston McKennie from Juventus were at risk from Nottingham Forest’s desire to be on the end of every transfer. At half-time, he came up with an exclusive that, last week, Leicester had bid £20m to sign first-half goalscorer Jackie Harrison. You know that meme about photos of crowds without cellphones in their hands, where everyone looks like they’re just living in the moment? Ornstein was on a personal crusade to make sure no Leeds fan could enjoy this game unless they had binned the Twitter app from their phone and refused to speak to anyone who hadn’t done the same. (Not an entirely bad idea.) Even then, blissfully offline fans might have noticed if chief executive Angus Kinnear went seeking a quiet corner to make some urgent calls, the colour draining from his face as sweat gleamed across his pasty brow. Although it could have been reasonably argued that he always looks like that.

Because the subject was transfers, of course Fabrizio Romano had to have his say, blurting out his ‘Here we go’ catchphrase about McKennie to Leeds ten minutes into the second half. He added some extra fluff about how ‘Leeds president Radrizzani unlocked the deal with Juventus in the night’, and half an hour after full-time, Ornstein was joining in: ‘Looks too late for rivals’, he tweeted, his reports of Nottingham Forest’s interest lasting just long enough to suck the joy out of half a Leeds match. People have given lots of reasons over the years for the FA Cup’s modern lack of lustre, and we should be sure to mention that unhelpful transfer tweets from scoop-chasing ghouls don’t add a lot to the experience. At least leave us alone while the match is on, there are 22 other hours in a day, six other days in a week, to bug us about all that.

Another reason for the FA Cup’s lack of lustre has been Leeds United’s lack of presence beyond the fifth round since 2003. Is it coincidence that the cup’s esteem has diminished since then? I’m saying no. Leeds are right in that fifth round now, by taking on a classic of the banana skin genre and defeating it from the textbook. I haven’t even mentioned that Jesse Marsch almost started a fight with Accrington’s assistant manager, another ‘romance-of-the’ FA Cup box ticked on a good day at the office. This is all only going one way, so see you in the fifth round, when we’re getting inevitably knocked out at Old Trafford. ⬢