No Elland Road this week. No matchday ale, no walk down Lowfields Road, nothing but an international break stretching out like a wet Tuesday with nowt on telly. But "no fixture" doesn't mean "no news" — half our dressing room packed a bag and went and did something interesting for their country instead.
Top of the pile: Tarik Muharemović. Bosnia-Herzegovina drew 1-1 with Sweden, and the only reason it wasn't worse is that our lad spent ninety minutes getting in the way of Viktor Gyökeres, who is, in case you'd forgotten, supposedly 'one of the most frightening strikers in Europe.' Gyökeres still got his goal, because even Muharemović is human, but Bosnian media reckon he "stopped the unstoppable" everywhere else on the pitch, and Dennis Alajbegović levelled it up at the other end. Not bad for a lad who was a full-back's whisper away from obscurity eighteen months ago.
If you've been waiting for an excuse to get the big man on your phone case, this is it.
He wasn't the only one abroad having a week worth talking about. Nico Elvedi scored a lovely one for Switzerland in a 3-0 win over Scotland at Hampden — timed run, clean finish, the lot — and kept a clean sheet to go with it. Over in the France U21 camp, Jean-Matteo Bahoya came off the bench after twelve minutes and still found time to curl one in from the right for a 2-0 win over Estonia, which is the kind of cameo that gets you a longer run in the squad photo next time.
James Trafford kept a clean sheet starting for England against Czechia before Jordan Pickford reclaimed the gloves for the Croatia game — Thomas Tuchel's prerogative, not a demotion, whatever anyone tells you. Jaka Bijol made one horror clearance for Slovenia and then spent the rest of the night correcting it, eventually topping the match for defensive actions in a 2-0 win. Ilia Gruev finally got his legs back under him with ninety minutes for Bulgaria after a long spell out with a knee injury. And spare a thought for Anton Stach, who got 37 minutes across two Germany games — one draw, one defeat — under new boss Jürgen Klopp. Ey up, Anton: tougher week than most, but the "Siuup" crowd haven't gone anywhere.
While our lot were busy being generally excellent across half of Europe, Arsenal's international break went rather differently. Kai Havertz and Christos Tzolis both picked up hamstring injuries on duty, Declan Rice pulled out of the England camp, William Saliba's still missing, and nobody seems entirely sure which of Ben White, Piero Hincapie or Cristhian Mosquera will be fit either. Oh, and they lost 3-0 at home to Brighton before any of that happened. The bookies still have them as overwhelming favourites for the Emirates on the 10th, which tells you everything about how this league talks about Leeds and nothing about how nervous it actually is to play us. We're five games unbeaten and quietly enjoying the view.
Normal matchday service resumes a week on Saturday. Until then, go and put the big Bosnian on your phone.
