It was breathless, it was thrilling and it made very little sense.
Twice Liverpool seemed to have the game won but the ruthless competence of last season has gone. It seems almost incredible now that this was a club that won the league with a series of cold-eyed 2-0 victories. They led 2-0 here, and were 3-2 up four minutes into injury time, yet still couldn’t manage a win.
And a difficult night was not finished there. Soon after the final whistle, Mohamed Salah accused the club of throwing him “under the bus” after he was left out of the starting lineup for the third game running, saying he has been made a scapegoat for the poor start to the season and casting severe doubt on his future at the club.
Liverpool have now won just two of their last 10 league games and that they remain within a point of Champions League qualification is the result in part of the string of unlikely late winners with which they began the season, and in part of the crowded middle of the table; two points separate fifth from twelfth.
They won their last away game by that familiar 2-0 scoreline, but nobody can be sure whether a win at West Ham means the victors have played well or have just been playing West Ham. This was a mishmash of haplessness and excellence. Their three goals all stemmed from fine finishes and one from clever buildup play, but the image of the game – once again – was Virgil van Dijk standing, hands on hips, steam rising literally and metaphorically as he glared in disbelief at the bizarrely diffident defending around him.
Arne Slot insisted he is starting to see signs of progress. His side had seemed in control, only for a needless sliding challenge from Ibrahima Konaté to concede a penalty that offered Leeds a way back into the game.
“Unfortunately for him,” Slot said of Konaté, “he does a lot of things well but he has been a bit too much on the crime scene. He has been involved in goals we have conceded. If you are a centre-back that happens in football. Today it was a tackle that came from effort, he tried to block the cross, the ball went out and then there was contact. The question is of whether VAR should intervene …” The replay actually seemed to show Konaté catching Willy Gnonto just before the ball went out of play.
“It is not for the first time I see us doing many things well without combining the result with the performance,” Slot continued. “I can take a lot of positives. But it’s not even a dangerous chance that leads to the penalty. And then in nine minutes of extra time we conceded a set piece.”
Sometimes the opening minutes of a half can give a false impression.
As Leeds had three shots in the opening five minutes, it seemed they might be about to carry on the form that enabled them to rattle Manchester City in the second half of their defeat at the Etihad Stadium a week ago before beating Chelsea on Wednesday. Here was the next stage of football’s 1980s revival: a front two. Here was another example of modern centre-backs struggling to deal with old-fashioned ideas such as both of them having to mark without the contingency of one of them covering.
But it did not work out like that. Other than Curtis Jones whipping a shot against the bar, very little happened for the rest of the first half, which felt like an achievement from a Liverpool point of view.
The opening to the second half proved just as illusory, as Liverpool swept into a 2-0 lead.
As well as no Salah again – he should at least be fresh for Egypt’s Cup of Nations campaign – and this time, having scored in the win over West Ham last Sunday and started Wednesday’s draw against Sunderland, Alexander Isak was left out. That meant a first league start in almost a month for Hugo Ekitiké and he responded with two goals. Leeds played their part in both. Ekitiké’s first was the result of a sloppy square ball from Joe Rodon while his second, which came while the video assistant referee was checking whether his heel had been clipped in the box, came after Conor Bradley had nipped in front of Gabriel Gudmundsson to keep the ball in play.
Last season, that might have been that, but for Liverpool at the moment nothing can ever be straightforward. Konaté slid to block Gnonto when he might have shepherded him to the goalline, and caught his knee. Dominic Calvert-Lewin converted the penalty for his third goal in his last three starts. Gnonto had been part of a triple substitution eight minutes earlier.
Two minutes later, with Elland Road raucously energised, another sub, Brenden Aaronson, after combining with Gnonto, slipped a neat ball inside for Anton Stach, who slammed in the equaliser.
• Ao Tanaka’s equaliser for Leeds was the third result-altering goal Liverpool have conceded in the 90th minute or later of a Premier League game this season (also winners for Crystal Palace and Chelsea), their joint most in a single campaign in the competition, along with 2010-11.
• Only Nottingham Forest (11) have conceded more goals from set pieces in the Premier League this season (excluding penalties) than Liverpool (10). It’s more than the Reds shipped from set plays in the whole of 2024-25 in the league (9).
• There were 130 seconds between Liverpool’s first and second goals of this game, and then 165 seconds between Leeds United’s first and second goals. Opta
But Liverpool came again. Lucas Perri made a stunning save from a Van Dijk header before, with 10 minutes remaining, Alexis Mac Allister stepped over Cody Gakpo’s through ball to release Dominik Szoboszlai, who finished calmly.
It looked as if, for the second time in a week, Leeds had pulled back a two-goal deficit only to lose. But there was one last twist to come, as a left-wing corner fell for yet another substitute, Ao Tanaka. He had scored against Chelsea and he scored again: 3-3. Elland Road writhed in ecstasy and Leeds rose to 16th, three points above the relegation zone, having emerged from a week in which they played three of last season’s top four with four points and a lot of credit.
Did it mean anything? Who would possibly say?
