Tanaka equaliser caps thrilling comeback as Leeds deny Liverpool

Last season, there was a coldly efficient streak to Liverpool. They rolled out a series of unremarkable 2-0 wins, a title rooted in unfussy competence. This season could hardly be more different; they are neither unfussy nor competent. They led 2-0 and, four minutes intostoppage time, they led 3-2, and yet still they didn’t win it. It was tremendous fun, but Arne Slot will have hated it.

Just as no side can be sure whether a win at West Ham in their previous away match means they’ve played well or were just playing West Ham, so it would be unwise to read too much into this mishmash of the haplessness and excellence. Their three goals all resulted from fine finishes and one from clever buildup play, but the image of the game – once again – would be Virgil van Dijk standing hands on hips, steam rising both literally and metaphorically as he glared in disbelief at the bizarrely diffident defending around him.

Sometimes the opening minutes of a half can give an entirely false impression. As Leeds had three shots in the opening five minutes, it seemed that 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 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 like both of them having to mark without the contingency of one of them covering.

But it didn’t 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.

Within five minutes of the start of the second half they appeared to have the game won. But that opening proved just as illusory as the start to the first half had been.

Hugo Ekitiké gives Liverpool the lead. Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images/Reuters

For the third game in a row Mohamed Salah was left out – 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, so too was Alexander Isak. That meant a first league start in almost a month for Hugo Ekitiké and he responded with two goals, although Leeds more than played their part.

Ekitiké’s first, finished neatly past an exposed Lucas Perri, was the result of a sloppy square ball from Joe Rodon. 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: 2-0, thank you very much. But this campaign it feels like nothing can ever be straightforward. Not for the first time this season, Ibrahima Konaté was the agent of chaos. As the substitute Willy Gnonto burst through, there was no need for him to do anything other than shepherd the forward to the goalline, but Konaté slid in, his foot bouncing off the turf to catch Gnonto just below the knee. Dominic Calvert-Lewin converted the penalty for his third goal in his last three starts. Two minutes later, with Elland Road suddenly energised, another sub, Brenden Aaronson, after combining with Gnonto, slipped a neat ball inside for Anton Stach, who slammed in the equaliser.

But Liverpool came again. After a first half in which a goal seemed a vague, almost impossibly fanciful aspiration, suddenly neither side could stop getting efforts on target. Perri made a stunning save form a Van Dijk header before Alexis Mac Allister stepped over Cody Gakpo’s through-ball to release Dominik Szoboszlai who finished calmly.

It looked like, 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 struck Ryan Gravenberch on the arm and fell for yet another substitute, Ao Tanaka. He had scored against Chelsea and he scored again. And so it ended 3-3, after a second half of frenetic and perhaps unanalysable excitement.