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It’s happening again. The same old story played out another time. It happened at Athletic, it happened at Marseille and it happened last season. This is what Marcelo Bielsa sides do. They start brilliantly, they ignite the enthusiasm and then they fade.
Leeds’ start to the season was so good they remain in the automatic promotion places but it’s hard to avoid the sense the mirror has cracked and the curse is on them.
Is it a curse if it is a perpetual flaw? Perhaps not, and yet to complain of the flaw seems oddly beside the point. Part of the glory of Bielsa is that his teams can play football of great beauty but it is a doomed beauty. So fundamental has that come to feel, it may even now be self-perpetuating. It may not any more be about him exhausting his players, whether that is a physical or a mental or emotional process, it may just be the narrative Leeds fans deny so vociferously is so powerful it eats away at players and Bielsa anyway.
Add to that Leeds’ (justifiable) perception of themselves as a major club, their desperation to return to the top flight after 16 years and the fear hopes may have been raised in vain and the result is a potent psychological inhibitor.
The anxiety about Leeds is clear, among fans, among players, among coaching staff. After last season’s near miss, a run of seven straight wins before Christmas had turned hope into expectation, giving them a cushion they have desperately needed. At one stage they led Forest by 11 points, but a run of two wins in 10 games has brought the gap down to one. The top five in the Championship are separated by three points.
“The responsibility of this moment of the team is me, because if you have good players and those players give their all on the pitch the conclusion is inevitable,” Bielsa said. “I have to understand it is me who has to find the solutions. Pressure for the players and me doesn’t exist. We are professional.”
Both sides were fretful early on but Forest, fundamentally more secure and reinvigorated by the return of Samba Sow alongside Ben Watson at the back of midfield, are better able to deal with disjointedness. They have taken 20 points from their last nine matches in the league and are looking increasingly well-equipped to end their 21-year stint outside the elite.
“We disturbed Leeds in the first half,” said the Forest manager, Sabri Lamouchi, who deployed Joe Lolley higher than he normally plays, with a brief to disrupt Leeds’s deep-lying midfielder Ben White. “They made more mistakes than usual early on. We were in a good position and we created a lot. We need to understand why, and we need to play with the same mentality in every game.”
And at the moment, the truth is that Leeds will give you opportunities; keep it tight and chances will more than likely come. The vital one arrived just after the half hour when Sammy Ameobi cut in from the left and lashed a shot that swerved through the dive of Kiko Casilla.
Leeds did finally get going in the last 20 minutes but Tyler Walker settled the game in injury time, tapping in after Leeds had been caught with men upfield.
Lamouchi explained the victory by pointing out “Leeds made more mistakes than us”. And that might be enough for Forest: in a volatile league, solidity can be a great virtue.
Bielsa insisted the loss of momentum did not worry him because of the fundamental inconsistency of the Championship but Leeds remain frozen on the precipice. The summit is in sight, there is a way to climb but they can seemingly do nothing but stare down in terror.
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