Leeds top of Championship: No cakewalk for Farke — but it has been coming — The Athletic 18/3/24

By Phil Hay and Mark Carey

The important question was answered last week as Daniel Farke opened up about the third element of the “sofa, coffee and cake” routine he uses to relax.

“Cheesecake,” he said. “Always cheesecake.” And having allowed himself to indulge in it after a patient victory at Sheffield Wednesday, yesterday gave him the excuse to revisit whichever patisserie floats his boat in Harrogate. It makes a change from gorging on the Championship which, after 258 days of Farke, Leeds United lead for the very first time.

They have been climbing in that direction for weeks, chipping away at Leicester City above them, and while Leicester head into this season’s final international break with a game in hand over Leeds, neither games in hand nor substantial points advantages have been much use in holding Leeds back. It is, as Farke says time and again, all a case of how the table looks when the race is run.

The gaps at the top of it are so tight that a cake-free diet would be needed to squeeze through them — Leeds, Leicester and Ipswich all beyond 80 points, a single point dividing the three of them and Leeds top by virtue of goal difference — but the thought must have occurred in Leicester that without Ipswich Town’s injury-time implosion at Cardiff City nine days ago, they would be waking up today in third. The break ahead is one of those interludes when a manager with impetus rues the pause in the fixture list, but Farke knows better than to look the gift horse of a little breather in the face.

Since New Year’s Day, his side have gone through 17 matches, five of them midweek. His pre and post-match press conferences totalled 33 in that period alone, reprising the old joke about seeing a coach more than your other half, and Farke has made no pretence of his job being as stress-free as Leeds’ results. Their squad, in a year so uniquely competitive, could not be more perfectly placed and even if Leeds at the top of the division felt like it was coming as February ran into March, it has taken a climber’s stamina to get them here. Their defeat at West Bromwich Albion on December 29 left a gap of 17 points between them and Leicester, the harsh reality Enzo Maresca is having to manage — albeit a scenario he also predicted.

Determining who deserves what in this scramble is not easy because from Leeds down to Southampton in fourth, none of the protagonists have done a huge amount wrong. Even Leicester’s recent stumble, 11 points dropped in their last five league matches, is what the division does to everyone sooner or later. No ship is immune to icebergs. But Leeds? No question either that they head the table on merit; the embodiment of a plan which has come together through persistence and the confident conviction that time would vindicate it.

Their expected goals (xG) calculation in individual matches began trending up significantly after a trying first month and has been closer to two than one for most of the season. The evolution of their expected goals against (xGA) numbers shows sustained and consistent improvement defensively, culminating in the almost unfathomable concession of no league goals from open play since the end of 2023. Take penalties out of the equation and the last time Leeds gave away an xG of one or more over 90 minutes was at Southampton in September, their one and only genuine no-show. There were moments when the title looked well beyond Farke, but with the benefit of hindsight, his squad have been competently surging for a long time.

Leicester’s own xG is incredibly strong too, but defensively, they have given more away than Leeds.

Their xGA began climbing from late October onwards and has spiked noticeably over the past month — a contrast to Ipswich, who have been tightening up at the back in terms of the quality of chances they are shipping. In a race in which margins are so slim, fractions of data and fluctuations in performance levels threaten to be decisive. Leicester and Southampton have games in hand. They also have to play each other and cope with congestion in the closing weeks of the season.

“I don’t want to be over-emotional or over-interpret anything,” Farke said. “Leicester still have the best position because they have a game in hand, but we should enjoy this a little bit. If you don’t, you’ll ask yourself one day why you were doing all this hard work. It’s just important to stay on it.”

At Elland Road, Leeds’ machine-like reliability and the widening of the gap between their xG and xGA have made many home games a mirror-image of each other.

It can be Preston North End, Norwich City, Rotherham United, Stoke City or yesterday’s opponents, Millwall: the same sort of contest, the same outcome, the way the water flows. There is no prospect of much help coming the way of Leicester, Ipswich or Southampton from these parts when Millwall go the way of almost everyone else, slow in putting pressure on Leeds’ box and picked off in a laboured first half by a banger from Willy Gnonto, his swerving finish fading into Matija Sarkic’s left-hand corner.

No wonder coach after coach keeps talking enviously about Farke’s collection of match-winners. “Leeds deserved to win,” said Millwall’s Neil Harris. “No debating that from me.”

A second goal was needed to take Leeds top of the league on goal difference and it might have come before half-time had referee Stephen Martin spotted a challenge he was staring right at: Jake Cooper planting a knee on Joe Rodon inside Millwall’s box. Leeds have had the rough end of some poor penalty calls, few of them worse than yesterday’s, but Millwall were too often in a different hemisphere to Illan Meslier until they began taking risks after half-time.

Irrespective of whether the table needed a second Leeds goal, it was apparent the contest itself required that insurance, particularly after Georginio Rutter placed one great chance too close to Sarkic and saw the rebound strike a post via a deflection off the goalkeeper.

There was no resisting in the 79th minute, though, when Rutter went around the back of Harris’ defence and presented a sitter at the feet of Dan James who, freshly off the bench, forced it over the line in his own time. The crowd had done their maths and understood what the finish meant. Farke punching the air gave away the fact that he did, too, an unusually animated reaction full of emotion.

Onwards, then, for him and Leeds; eating cake and eating away the 17-point advantage the division’s presumed champions-in-waiting once held. This is it now, the last chance to breathe before the pack in front of a very distant peloton goes for the line. Farke might quietly wish the next game was tonight because respite was not what Leeds were craving, but the break to come will feel longer for Leicester than it does for the two clubs on either side of them.