This was the week we were dreading when the fixtures came out, but we ended it with a rousing final 20 minutes against Liverpool, to finish with four points from our games against three of the much vaunted giants of Premier League football.

Daniel Farke opted to keep the 3-5-2 formation that had served him so well in the previous one and a half games, though there were a couple of changes of personnel. Nmecha was ruled out by injury so Okafor came in, still playing as a central striker. It was more of a surprise that Tanaka was replaced by Gruev, though there was a suggestion that he had taken a knock against Chelsea on Wednesday.

But Liverpool’s selection was always going to attract more of the headlines, with Isak and Salah both on the bench. I thought we might benefit again from a side with Champions League commitments resting key players against us, but Ekitiké was to prove an excellent stand in. His goals were a double whammy for me, after his recent lack of game time caused me to remove him from my fantasy team.

Once again we began at a lively pace, and Okafor dragged a shot just wide from a good position. This was to be as close as we got before the interval, as Liverpool began to dominate the proceedings. Which was what I would have expected had we been playing last season’s Liverpool, but with their stuttering form in this campaign I was hoping we would do better than we did in the first half.

A curling shot from Jones clipped the bar, and van Dijk put a free header narrowly wide. And it started to look a lot worse as the scousers took a two goal lead in the first five minutes after the break. Rodon has been excellent at the back for us this season, but he won’t want to look back on his casual pass across the face of goal towards Ampadu.

It was behind our captain and Ekitiké gratefully collected the ball and had time to shift it onto his favoured right foot, before sending it into the corner of the net. And worse was to follow on 50 minutes, after Ekitiké was challenged in the box. The VAR mob began to look at a possible penalty, but Ekitiké saved them the trouble by getting up in time to meet a cross from the right, and beating Perri’s challenge to send the ball into the net.

The TV replay showed that our keeper was unlucky, as he blocked the initial shot, but the ball bounced of Ekitiké’s leg at just the right angle to loop over him on it’s way into goal. There was still work for VAR to do, but they concluded that Ekitiké was onside as he was behind the ball when it was played. And if he had been offside they might have gone back to check the penalty anyway.

At this point it looked like we had run out of puff after the efforts of the previous week, so Farke made the first of his subs on 65 minutes to freshen things up a bit. He reverted back to his original 4-3-3, but quite strangely this worked just as well as his switch to 5-3-2 had last week. Perhaps the team are just invigorated because the manager has tried something, and they think that any change of formation might just work.

Okafor hadn’t done much since his early chance, while Bijol and Gruev were the others to be ‘hooked’. Aaronson, Gnonto and Tanaka came on, and all three would play their part in the comeback that followed. We reached 73 minutes with Liverpool seemingly still in control, with Perri having to make a fine save from Gakpo to make sure we didn’t go three down.

But then a rash challenge from Konaté changed the whole complexion of the game. Gnonto had run out of space to get round the defender and still get the cross in, so Konaté could have stayed on his feet instead of diving in as Gnoto took an extra touch to make sure he didn’t get the ball. VAR had to check that the ball hadn’t gone out of play before contact was made, but decided that it was indeed a penalty.

With neither Nmecha or Piroe on the field it was left to Calvert-Lewin to take it, and his shot wasn’t that well placed, but at least it had plenty of power to take it past Alison, as the keeper almost got to it. And with the home crowd now roaring Leeds on, we forced the equaliser only two minutes later.

Aaronson played the ball to Stach, and our German midfielder jinked his way into the box, before finding the back on the net from 12 yards as four defenders stood off him. But just when we thought we thought we were on our way to a result Liverpool went back onto the front foot, and a van Dijk header forced Perri into another fine save as he turned the ball round the post.

Then on 80 minutes they seemed to have killed the mood by retaking the lead. As they broke down the left Gudmundsson was drawn inside to deal with Mac Allister, leaving Szoboszlai free on the right, as Gnonto reacted too late to contribute to the defence. Mac Allister cleverly let the ball run through to Szoboszlai, and the Hungarian accepted the opportunity to drill the ball across Perri into the far corner of the net.

It was time for Farke’s ‘throw all the forwards on’ tactic, as Piroe came on for Ampadu, though it wasn’t quite so obvious why the final sub was Bornauw for Bogle, as we went into nine minutes of added time. The length of injury time owed much to the two VAR checks, but even so I wasn’t expecting that much to be added.

By now Liverpool were trying to run down time by taking the ball to the corner, but they still couldn’t prevent our final goal after six of the extra minutes had gone by. A corner passed over the heads of several defenders who might have got to it, and came through to an unmarked Tanaka beyond the far post. Ao defied the tight angle as he volleyed the ball into the ground, and chaos erupted as it bounced up into the far corner of the net.

In the time that remained I was torn between wanting us to go all out for a win, or wanting us to hang on for a draw that would feel like a win in any case. In the end neither side could score again, and while Liverpool were about to go into meltdown off the field, we could take great delight in one of the most memorable draws that Elland Road has seen in the last few years.

And as an added bonus, Nottingham Forest were kind enough to lose earlier in the day, so we went up another place, and we will hold on to 16th place if West Ham fail to win at Brighton today. The spirit shown by the team and the new-found tactical flexibility of the manager in the last two and a half games must surely put the rumours of his sacking to bed.

Farke might be feeling a bit nervous of going to Brentford next week, as that was the venue where he was brutally dismissed by Norwich in the dressing room, just after a game he’d actually won! But with his team clearly playing for him, we can now dare to hope that this is the start of a revival that will ultimately take us to safety.

Reuters

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