It was getting towards full-time at Elland Road earlier this afternoon when a familiar song started to belt out from the away end.
‘Leeds, Leeds are falling apart… again.’ Sung to the Joy Division track, it’s a tune that will no doubt fill Whites fans with dread that, yet again, their side is going to fall short and remain in the Championship.
With a knobbled Pontus Jansson having to go in goal and no subs left, things ended farcically for the Whites, before frank words at full-time were exchanged by Pablo Hernandez and Ezgjan Alioski.
A clearly rattled Marcelo Bielsa sliced through his interview with Sky Sports – via his translator – refusing to budge from the first question, asking whether the Whites had deserved to win; their manager felt they had.
All signs, then, that the Whites have suddenly buckled, but that’s far from fair.
The Whites can lose games – like any side – and they have done this season, but they’ve always bounced back.
This year, they have shown far more promising signs of mental strength, resilience and grit.
They’re just a point off of the top two, with a fixture list that is arguably kinder than that of the Blades.
It will be tough, but they knew that anyway, and for large swathes of this season they’ve consigned the past to exactly that, the past.
Do not write them off yet, then, as the fan reaction to this loss was more measured than that in previous years.
There remains a conviction and a confidence in what they are trying, for now, and so, despite the expected opposing fan derision, they are far from in pieces right now.
