Daniel Chapman: Watching Leeds United's hard work can be hard work but promotion would be all the excitement we need

In theory we like footballers who graft, the committed players who put in the hard yards and leave everything on the pitch.
Jack Harrison has to work hard defensively as well as producing moments like his goal on Saturday (Pic: Getty)Jack Harrison has to work hard defensively as well as producing moments like his goal on Saturday (Pic: Getty)
Jack Harrison has to work hard defensively as well as producing moments like his goal on Saturday (Pic: Getty)

If the players get some mud on their shirts and blood on their boots then Leeds fans will go home happy.

It’s in practice, though, that we realise how hard that is to watch.

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‘Side Before Self, Every Time’ is written high above the entrance at Elland Road, taken from among Billy Bremner’s many words to build a club by. But, like all good lessons, it’s not easy to take. The fans believe in it, and understand that it means players giving their all, regardless of skill or ability. After a defeat while Leeds manager, Bremner insisted his players “have to learn to die for Leeds United”; at Elland Road in 1906, David ‘Soldier’ Wilson did just that for Leeds City, the inquest deciding that “overeagerness to be of service to his club” brought about the heart attack he suffered during a game against Burnley.

Bremner’s rhetoric and Wilson’s sacrifice gives Leeds an identity it can be proud of, one that is much more meaningful than, say, Hull City fans waggling their paws in the air like they’re advertising cereal.

But what we remember of Eddie Gray’s career is the time he dribbled around countless Burnley defenders to score, not his later years when, instead of retiring with his feet up, he kept turning out at left-back because the club needed his help.

We dream of a team of David Battys, but it’s hard to resist swapping at least one of them for his little blonde doppelgänger Samu Saiz, to give a jolt to Batty’s rolling tin bath. It was Carl Shutt who replaced the disinterested Eric Cantona in the Nou Camp in 1992, and immediately scored one of United’s famous goals, the winner against Stuttgart. But it was Cantona who the fans mourned when he was sold to Old Trafford a few weeks later.

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We still had Shutt – a striker who actually tried to win games for Leeds – and we’d won the league with a team built around Lee Chapman. But when were Chapman or Shutt going to juggle the ball over three Chelsea defenders and volley into the top corner?

Football tears itself between results and entertainment, and the Peacocks are facing that dilemma this season more than most, as they grind their way towards the Premier League with their plumage trimmed.

Leeds haven’t scored a goal to worry Tony Yeboah’s place in the highlights reels for weeks, not since Stoke City gave Pablo Hernandez half their pitch to pass into, and the one player carrying our hope for the spectacular, Eddie Nketiah, was snatched away from his first start against QPR with a stomach injury. The flair on Saturday came from QPR’s Eberechi Eze, number 10 on his shirt and in his skilful feet, and QPR fans must see in him the thrill of Tony Currie come back, a player who once revelled in the floodlights at Elland Road.Eze’s efforts came to no good, though, as he was beaten by the grim workrate of his marker, Stuart Dallas, while assist machine Jack Harrison won the game, with help from the creative efficiency of Tyler Roberts.

Roberts had one memorable touch, bringing a high pass under his control in the box before aiming his shot just over. Apart from that, he kept his tricks in check, and concentrated on his impact, as when he surefooted Harrison’s lay-off into the bottom corner to open the scoring.

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That was a trademark set-up by Harrison, not the first time he’s twisted in the box while the crowd shouts at him to do something more than wait. We want to see him flick the ball over a defender and superbike it into the top corner, but Marcelo Bielsa plays Harrison as a left-winger with left-back on his mind: safe beats spectacular, then he can get back to defend.

Bielsa doesn’t like cameras at his training sessions, believing the footage would only be scoured for flashpoints that sell newspapers. He also believes we’d find it boring: where’s the fun in watching other people do their day jobs?

We get to see them work for 90 minutes every week and now, four games unbeaten, only one goal conceded, the hard work we do see is working out very well.

How much more excitement do we need, if we win promotion?

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Daniel Chapman has co-edited Leeds United fanzine and podcast The Square Ball since 2011, taking it through this season’s 30th anniversary, and seven nominations for the Football Supporters’ Federation Fanzine of the Year award, winning twice. He’s the author of a new history book about the club, ‘100 Years of Leeds United, 1919-2019’, and is on Twitter as MoscowhiteTSB.