Eddie Nketiah’s strike helps puts Leeds on top again after late win at Barnsley

Arsenal held a series of discreet interviews this summer with applicants, from home and abroad, asked to present in-depth pitches as to why their club would provide the right temporary home for Eddie Nketiah.

Perhaps thanks partly to the relationship between Victor Orta, the Leeds director of football, and Unai Emery, Arsenal’s manager, the Yorkshire club won the competition to take the 20-year-old striker on a season‑long loan and on Sunday Nketiah once again reminded everyone what the fuss was about.

Shortly after replacing a frustrated Patrick Bamford, the England Under‑21 international connected with a fine, curling 84th‑minute free‑kick from the excellent Kalvin Phillips at the far post and volleyed it ruthlessly beyond Brad Collins.

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As he acknowledged the travelling fans with a military-style salute and was rewarded with chants of “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie”, Nketiah succeeded in adding a gloss finish to a hitherto incoherent, if exciting, Leeds performance which a high-pressing Barnsley could conceivably have ended up winning.

Instead the visitors were destined to go top of the Championship, moving ahead of Swansea on goal difference. That scramble to the summit was completed when Nketiah was sent crashing in the area by Aapo Halme and, once the scoring substitute had lost an argument with Mateusz Klich over who would take the resultant penalty, the Pole’s low kick put the outcome beyond doubt. “We could have lost but I think everybody who saw the game will have enjoyed it,” said Bielsa, who, nonetheless, was unimpressed by skirmishes between rival Yorkshire fans necessitating police intervention.

The southbound M1 had earlier been filled with supporters making the 23‑mile drive from Leeds. After temporarily colonising Woolley Edge services en route, that travelling army announced their arrival in Barnsley with incessant choruses of “Marching on Together”‚ leaving neutrals to fathom out Bielsa’s latest formational twist.

Broadly a 4-1-4-1 configuration designed to frequently morph into the Leeds manager’s hallmark 3-3-1-3, it may not have been quite as startling as the visitors’ shocking pink and grey away kit but still left Daniel Stendel’s players initially struggling to get to grips with Bielsa’s beloved positional interchanging.

The problem for the Leeds players was that they were able to exercise so much freedom of movement within that flexible framework that, at times, their gameplan seemed too flimsily structured and their play assumed a chaotic, almost kamikaze, edge.

Indeed, only smart saves on the part of Kiko Casilla prevented Luke Thomas and then Mallik Wilks – a highly motivated Elland Road old boy – from shooting Barnsley into the lead. Admittedly, Bamford tested the sharpness of Collins’s reflexes a couple of times in the first half while Jack Harrison struck a post from close range but it was all a bit hit and hope.

Perhaps significantly those two Bamford chances were created by Jamie Shackleton. A surprise inclusion in the Leeds starting XI, the attacking midfielder faded a little after the break but proved the standout performer of an end-to-end opening 45 minutes enhanced by his creative dynamism and eye for a pass.

“Shackleton was very good,” said Bielsa, who replaced Harrison with Hélder Costa at the interval. Almost immediately the newcomer’s left-wing advance and cross left a stretching Bamford to slide the ball in the back of the net only for that effort to be disallowed for offside. By then Casilla had somehow tipped Jacob Brown’s arcing shot over his bar and the sense that no one was really in control heightened as Wilks’s rapid change of pace sent him surging beyond a couple of markers before, once again, stretching the keeper to the limit.

The moment had come for Bielsa to liberate Nketiah from the bench and the Arsenal loanee was greeted by a loud cheer from the away end. “Eddie’s got goals in him,” Bielsa said. “He’s a complete player.”

His contribution left Stendel sanguine. “I’m proud of our performance,” said Barnsley’s manager. “We defended high, we played with courage and we deserved at least a point but we didn’t take our chances.”