Middlesbrough memories
Norwich City’s Ben Gibson shared a Middlesbrough dressing room with Leeds United’s Adam Forshaw and Patrick Bamford at one point in their shared histories.
As the players came in from their pitch arrivals, Gibson and Bamford chatted at length by the mouth of the tunnel, while Forshaw had his reunion in the tunnel before kick-off.
Smith’s shakes
Dean Smith, unlike a lot of senior bosses, did come out to pitchside for the warm-ups and kept an eye on both teams.
As the Leeds players trotted in for their final preparations, Smith actually made an effort to shake as many hands as possible.
His days with Aston Villa and Brentford mean there is a fair bit of shared history with this side from Marcelo Bielsa’s era.
Stuart Dallas, Luke Ayling and Forshaw stood out.
A Red disguised in Canaries clothing
Brandon Williams hasn’t had the time to do a huge amount in his young career, but despite his lack of attention over the Pennines, the Leeds faithful know what he is.
The Manchester United loanee was reminded swiftly of his real allegiances when he first got onto the ball at Elland Road with boos.
As he lay down with an injury, later, there was no sympathy from the crowd. Only a song about his permanent employer.
Calls to calm it down
One of the principles of Bielsaball was a need to keep their foot on the pedal at all times. Throw-ins: take them as fast as humanly possible. Free-kicks: don’t dwell on them. Recycling from defence: clip it forward quickly.
On more than occasion during Sunday’s game, Jesse Marsch, Ayling, Bamford, Raphinha and others could be seen calling for calmness, a slowing of the pace or deliberately taking a while themselves.
One throw-in down the right flank was even left on the turf for Ayling to walk 30 yards to reach it.
Elsewhere, when Illan Meslier had the ball in hand, with an opportunity to get a Leeds counter shifting, he was told by his teammates to stop and wait for everyone to catch their breath.
Come closer
It’s been a feature of the first three games and Marsch has mentioned it once or twice in his press conferences, but we saw it again on Sunday.
Marsch, especially when the ball is dead, can be seen beckoning the players closer in together.
While Bielsa wanted to stretch the pitch as wide as possible, in the 55th minute Marsch could be seen repeatedly waving Raphinha in closer to the rest of the team from the far side.
He wants the team attacking narrowly and closer in together.
Klich fumes at James
In the 63rd minute, long before the madness of the match’s conclusion, Daniel James got free and went on one of his jet-heeled dribbles through the heart of the pitch.
He went by a couple of Norwich players, but rather than slide in the overlapping Mateusz Klich, into space, he shot at goal.
The Poland international, despite the obviously decent play James had created, went berserk at the winger for not putting it on a plate for him.
What’s more, in the moments preceding the chance, the crowd had been singing ‘Klich is scoring goals’.
Phillips gets in on the act
As the players came off at full-time, Kalvin Phillips had to be at the sharp end and right in the thick of it with his teammates.
The England international was hugging everyone as they came past him at the mouth of the tunnel.
