Daniel Farke calls for calm at Leeds as promotion race keeps twisting and turning — The Athletic 10/4/24

By Nancy Froston

Sunderland’s team bus picking up a parking ticket for sitting too long outside their team hotel in Leeds was the image that told the story of a frustrating night at Elland Road.

While interim manager Mike Dodds’ side did not exactly park the bus, a well-executed plan by a team with little left to play for this season worked to perfection. Its effectiveness should be a warning for the final four games for Leeds United.

Daniel Farke’s side were not at their best. Sunderland were organised in their shape out of possession and restricted their opponent’s chances. And as multiple penalty appeals were waved away by the referee, it seemed there was no infraction obvious enough to give Leeds the bit of luck needed in the final third.

In the increasingly grumpy, occasionally angry atmosphere at Elland Road, it is easy to see the result as an opportunity missed as promotion rivals Leicester City lost 1-0 away to Millwall, leaving the gap between the two teams at a single point. Leicester have a game in hand and this was Leeds’ chance to leapfrog them to the top of the Championship.

The outside noise will never be louder than this point of the season and, after a run of performances that have felt a slog in recent weeks, some degree of alarm feels justified.

Filtering out that buzz of nervousness is the task on Farke’s hands. His view — that a point in the circumstances is a point well won on a night when a major rival has lost — feels sensible and calm. Neither of those qualities have much sticking power for anyone outside the dugout at this stage in a promotion race this tight.

“The structure was much better today than Coventry,” he said. “The intensity was much better, I wasn’t happy with that in the Coventry game, but today we turned back to a much better intensity.

“Sometimes that’s life. You analyse what went wrong, you do things and you don’t get the reward right away. It felt like we deserved to win this game, if I’m honest. Normally, you should get two penalties or score out of a set piece, but it’s a bit like in life when you do the right things, when you get back on the right path, you have to stay relentless and stay on it.

“I’m not too annoyed. I’m disappointed that the outcome was just a draw, but at least we didn’t completely lose our nerve. Sometimes you feel the need to score, you open up completely and you concede from a counter-attack. Sometimes even a point can prove to be valuable by the end of the season. It never feels like this on a day like today.

“If you don’t score, you don’t create chances, then you have to make sure you get at least the second-best result, and that’s what we did.”

In his pre-match press conference ahead of the game, Farke talked of the importance of his team being “cool in the head with fire burning in the heart” if they are to secure that top-two finish. The German should know, after all — he has done it twice before.

But is there such a thing as being too cool in the head? Too elevated from the pressure of the moment?

Some Leeds fans might argue yes, as Farke waited until the 82nd minute to make a triple substitution and overhaul his blunted attacking line. It has been a frequent criticism of late that it has taken too long before substitutions are sent on and none of the four used as replacements against Sunderland (Willy Gnonto, Connor Roberts, Joel Piroe and Mateo Joseph) had long enough to make a major impression.

Leeds could and should have come away with more from this game had refereeing decisions gone their way.

Sunderland defender Dan Ballard was lucky to stay on the pitch after a series of fouls on Patrick Bamford. Then there was a first-half penalty shout for handball on Crysencio Summerville’s deflected shot before the most egregious of all to those in Leeds white in the second half on Joe Rodon. It felt as if the referee could have taken his pick from the handball, shirt grab or flailing arm to the face to award a penalty when the Welshman rose to meet a corner, but Tim Robinson gave nothing.

The game was physical, Leeds were too reliant on a moment of brilliance from Summerville, and the attacking threat was too easily nullified for this to be anything but a frustrating night. That Dodds “didn’t feel at any point that Leeds were going to carve us open” is a fair summary, even if Farke feels like his side took a step forward.

“We edge one point closer,” he said. “It’s good for us that they (Leicester) didn’t win the game, so you can speak about ‘what if’. But this is football. I don’t want to speak about the past too much. I normally never speak in front of the players about what happened at my former clubs because they don’t want to hear it, it has no effect. But just because it fits: I ended my first promotion with Norwich in the last six games with draw, draw, draw, draw, win, win.

“After each draw, everyone was panicking that it wasn’t going to be enough for promotion — we needed wins. But then you saw the other results coming in and, in the end, we won the league. You never know. I’m not happy, but this draw brings us at least into the top two and sometimes even one point can prove pretty important.”

How important will one point be? In a little under a month, we will have the answer.