Leeds United’s Tortured Artist

Brenden Aaronson

During the 1-0 win against Southampton, it struck me how much things had changed in such a short space of time. Leeds moved the ball as well as they had in years (in fact 85% pass success is more than Leeds have managed in any game during the Marsch era). Jack Harrison was reacquainted with the touchline to predictably potent effect. Junior Firpo is finally coming good, which it appears nobody predicted. If you thought Junior had a future at Leeds, you’d have been lying. All these things were important factors in grabbing the win in Leeds’ 5th ‘must win’ game of the season. Must stop making them a habit. Something which may have gone slightly under the radar, however, was the performance of Brenden Aaronson.

Brenden arrived in the summer from RB Salzburg for the not-inconsiderable fee of £24.7 million, and he did come with a reputation as pretty exciting talent, aged 22 and with a high ceiling, a pressing machine graduated from the Red Bull school of high octane geggenpressing penisball™. He was one of the most effective pressers in the Champions League, he was on Bielsa’s shopping list right up until he left the club - a bid was made last January when the board decided their lord and saviour didnt really need any signings and it was absolutely fine that we went into the rest of the season with a midfield trident of Rodrigo, Koch, and Klich, the only central midfielder in the side. And Dan James up front, where Rodrigo should have been. It’s interesting to think of the kind of player Brenden Aaronson could be by now if Marcelo had got hold of the Medford Messi when they first showed their hand around a year ago.

We may have seen a slightly more rounded player than the one we’ve seen so far this season, which has been a difficult one for Aaronson. He’s probably worked as hard off the ball as anybody, his only goal for Leeds so far being a case in point - opening the scoring against Chelsea by pressing Edouard Mendy into oblivion and tapping in. FBref has Brenden in the 91st percentile for blocks in the top 5 leagues for players in his position, and in the 70th percentile for tackles. He’s also in the 82nd percentile for fouls won. Aaronson came to Leeds and played the style of football he’s been taught to play for his whole professional life - finding trouble, with and without the ball. The issue with this is that this is the Premier League, not the Austrian Bundesliga, and if you look for trouble in the Premier League then you either get kicked and fouled or you get bullied physically, completely legally in this divison, and lose the ball. The Premier League is a physical place to play football, where every team is strong, organised, they relish a physical contest, and plenty of teams at the bottom end feel most comfortable in that dark space of the game. James Tarkowski and Tyrone Mings do not play in La Liga, or the Eredivisie.

The physical level appears to have caused Aaronson a lot of problems, finding himself dribbling into dead ends and physical contests he can’t win at the moment. It appears to be an unfortunate symptom of the red bull method that squeezing the pitch into the width of both boxes means your attacking players are constantly in duels, which is fine if you’re the best player in the league (as Red Bull franchise players usually are - Salzburg have won 14 titles since 2006) because you can just magic your way out of trouble. And when the season was in the early stages, that’s often what Brenden did. That mazy run at Selhurst park was a moment of magic which absolutely deserved a goal - picking up a Rodrigo backheel on the right, Aaronson drove into the box beating 3 players in quick succession with some beautiful close control and hitting the foot of the post before Struijk drove the ball home for the opening goal. But as the season wore on and Jesse’s tactics were worked out, the moments of magic have become less and less frequent, as the young man's confidence appeared to evaporate. He was surely affected by the system that had served him well no longer appearing to make sense. Where would he go from here? Is it possible to try something new? If this style is so often forcing a player, who could be your most composed dribbler, into physical duels he’s not built for yet, why keep making him compete? Why keep squeezing him out of the game into the organ grinder of the opposition defence? This crisis in confidence appeared to hit the nadir against West Ham, Aaronson gifting Scamacca’s goal that put West Ham in front with an underhit and ill considered backpass that the Italian spanked in from just outside the box. That was followed by the FA cup ties against Cardiff, whose physical approach again brought out the worst in the lithe and lightweight Aaronson.

Dropped to the bench, the games against Manchester United did represent green shoots of recovery, but the Southampton game was his first start back in the team. And it was staggering to see the difference in him. Though he was subbed off for Georginio Rutter before Firpo’s goal, he was involved in plenty of the attacking play, playing as the shadow striker off of Patrick Bamford. He was busy - Brenden always is - but there was more than that. He was both looking for, and playing in space wherever he found it, moving across to both touch lines to help his wingers, and he looked like he had plenty of the thing he appeared to never have any of under Marsch - Time. He just looked so much calmer on the ball, picking the right passes and choosing the right options - and but for an errant square ball by Weston McKennie, he’d have surely had the opening goal to go with it all.

A shot dragged wide in the first half was indicative of a player still playing himself back into form, and there may be a fair way to go until we see the player we thought we were signing, or the player we knew Aaronson could be, but under Javi Gracia, there appears to be a system in which he could thrive, with the space to play in and the encouragement to buzz around as much as he does. As with all the best number 10s, we must be patient, but the boy will come good in time. The end of the season may see a light at the end of the tunnel for Leeds United’s midfield artist.

By Adam Geldart | @whitesmoke_lufc