Let's not pretend that was one for the DVD collection. Leeds United 0-0 Crystal Palace at Elland Road on Sunday, and if you were after end-to-end football, a striker running the show, and goals flying in off both boots, you wanted last Monday's game, not this one.
Because it's been two completely different weeks. Monday: Newcastle taken apart 4-1, Dominic Calvert-Lewin among the scorers in a performance Jamie Carragher called "unplayable" on commentary, with Newcastle boss Matthias Jaissle admitting afterwards his side simply couldn't live with the physicality. Sunday: backs against a Palace side that came to Elland Road, sat in, and turned a home game into hard labour.
Calvert-Lewin, so ruthless seven days earlier, will know he should have done better with the clearest chance either side created — straight at Walter Benítez when a yard either side wins the game. James Trafford made up for it with a smart stop off a Yeremy Pino free-kick, and when Tyrick Mitchell did find the net for Palace, VAR chalked it off for an offside earlier in the move. The width of a boot stud, basically, between a scrappy point and a much worse afternoon. Honest reflection: not our sharpest, second to a lot of loose balls, and a point that flattered nobody less than it flattered Palace.
Here's the bit worth sitting with, though — it's still an unbeaten start. Two wins, three draws, five games into a second Premier League season, and not a single defeat next to the club's name yet. Funny thing is, the same side that put four past Newcastle can also go and grind out a goalless stalemate a week later, and it's usually the second kind of result — not the first — that tells you whether a promoted club's actually built to stick around. Somehow, conveniently, the Palace side that had shipped more goals than anyone else in the division walked out of Elland Road with a clean sheet. Typical.
Either way, matchday routines don't change just because the football was scrappy — and if you spent Sunday evening rewatching Monday's highlights to cheer yourself back up (no shame in it, we did too), the shop's just landed phone cases for the two who made that afternoon what it was. Calvert-Lewin's finish for the third and Noah Okafor's left-footed volley for the fourth were the two moments Elland Road will still be talking about come Christmas, and now they're both mid-celebration on a case for your phone.
Newcastle are still working out what hit them, Palace leave with a point they'll happily bank, and Leeds stay unbeaten without needing to be at their best to do it. Arsenal away after the international break is the kind of fixture that'll actually tell us something. Until then, we'll take five games unbeaten — warts, near misses and all. Marching on together.
