Sometimes a game comes along that, if anything for me, Clive, almost tells the story of its teams too well.
A goalless draw between Leeds United and Newcastle on the final Saturday of August feels very much like one such game.
It is a result Leeds should be perfectly happy with, and four points from three games against Everton, Arsenal and Newcastle in this brief first pre-interlull section of the season is entirely satisfactory in the grand scheme.
Everything Leeds did in their own penalty area and between the penalty areas here was hugely encouraging. There was a monster of a standout shift in midfield from Sean Longstaff against his old side.
Leeds showed here that they will be able to go toe-to-toe with good Premier League sides, even if the Arsenals of this world are capable of blowing them away as last week showed.
The nagging doubts about how the season might pan out for Leeds beyond this three-week intro come, inevitably, from the near total lack of attacking threat. They lack both creativity and the final clinical touch, and that’s potentially a problem.
We’re three games in now and their only goal remains that controversial (yet to our eyes still perfectly straightforward) late penalty against Everton.
Even when they were frustrating Arsenal for half an hour last week they had no apparent way of landing a punch of their own, and that was true again here. It does feel like all future points they collect are going to be as hard-won as the four they’ve got so far have been, unless they can pull of something dramatic in the last couple of days in the transfer window.
The greater problems, though, clearly lie with the visitors. This is already their second toothless goalless draw of the season, the first against the 10 men of Aston Villa and now against a promoted side. For a club of Newcastle’s ambition, it’s not really good enough for the best result of their first three games of the season to be nearly taking a point off Liverpool.
Their obvious desperation to get a striker – any striker – in the door has led to what looks like a vast overpayment for the solid but unremarkable Nick Woltemade. Certainly the idea that he can replace even half of what Alexander Isak has brought to this Newcastle team appears for the birds.
He wasn’t signed in time to play here, of course, and in the continued absence of the apparently Anfield-bound Isak and exacerbated by the absurd self-inflicted suspension of Anthony Gordon, Newcastle simply weren’t able to put Leeds under any real pressure for any real length of time.
Rarely has a Premier League game felt more dependably goalless from further out than this one did. After about 20 minutes you already found yourself asking how much more 0-0 it could be, and the answer was none. None more 0-0.
It was a situation that played far more into Leeds’ hands than Newcastle’s, and the obvious – and largely in the grander scheme irrelevant – trip to the Emirates aside it does feel like Leeds have played two teams at handy times in this pre-deadline period.
Everton already look a far different beast to the quiet one so easily tamed by Leeds on the opening weekend now Jack Grealish is up to speed and falling back in love with football, while by the time Newcastle next take to a Premier League pitch they will at least know exactly how their various summer sagas have finally panned out. They’ll have closure at least.
But what we clearly do have at this early stage of the season is three promoted teams who have already shown they appear to have far more about them than any of the last six to attempt the step up to Premier League level. And that should make for a more entertaining season for everyone, if not perhaps on this specific August evening.
