Why ‘nerveless’ Daniel Farke has Leeds in better shape than the Bielsa era — inews 24/4/24

Leeds plan to keep £50m Archie Gray and are even considering expanding Elland Road as they prepare for life back in the Premier League

By Mark Douglas

Daniel Farke was not planning to watch much of Leicester City’s crucial game against Southampton, a match with huge potential consequences for the Championship promotion equation.

Long days at Thorp Arch have been a theme of Farke’s reign – he and his backroom team regularly work into the evening – and Tuesday was spent diligently analysing footage of Leeds United’s next opponents Queens Park Rangers. An 8pm kick-off for Leicester’s game would arrive before Farke pulled into his driveway.

Farke has done a mightily impressive job at Leeds this season, steadying a ship that was in serious danger of capsizing when he was appointed. Star players were keen to leave and a post-relegation fire sale was being hampered by foolhardy clauses that were hidden in contracts signed in the Premier League.

He is a substance over style sort of manager. When i contacted the agency that represents him earlier this year to find out some background information about the work he was doing, the reply was a polite version of “He does his talking in the dugout”. That kind of humility is in stark contrast to his brash predecessor Jesse Marsch.

And Farke has struck the right note at Elland Road, not least with his measured reaction to recent setbacks. Leeds is an emotional club, driven by the passion of its fanbase. That can be its biggest strength, but sometimes it helps when everyone just takes a breath.

“He’s been calm the whole season, he never loses his nerve,” Junior Firpo, Monday night’s man of the match, told i when asked about Farke’s mood after a pivotal win over Middlesbrough.

That snapped a streak of three games without a win that had raised the spectre of another April collapse to add to the collection. But a 4-3 victory, powered by Leeds’ potent front four of Patrick Bamford, Crysencio Summerville, Wilfried Gnonto and Georginio Rutter, means promotion is back on. Belief is flowing again, along with the goals.

“We have a young team but if I had to pick one team to play on any given day, I would pick [this] Leeds team all day,” Firpo continued.

It is possibly just as well that Farke is shielding the players from the high stakes Leeds are playing for.

Owners 49ers Enterprises have a two-year plan to clamber out of the Championship but missing out on promotion – and a second season in the second tier – brings with it a degree of pain.

While Leeds were painstaking in their work to stay within the Profitability and Sustainability Regulations (PSR) last summer, they are carrying a squad with Premier League wages. Their most recent recorded wage bill was £145m and while that has been pruned post-relegation, it would rapidly become unsustainable if their stay in the Championship extends for too long.

They have assets to sell, of course but the players that Premier League clubs want – Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and even Real Madrid have been linked with the prodigious Archie Gray – are those that Leeds want at the centre of their plans to become a sustainable, established Premier League club that tilts for honours in the medium to long-term.

A potential sale of Gray – there is no valuation on a player Leeds don’t want to sell but he would surely bring in over £50m already – would be regarded as pure profit in PSR terms but would send a horrendous message about the future. Promotion would make that agonising dilemma an irrelevance in an instant.

It would also allow the 49ers to move to stage two of a plan to invest in infrastructure and personnel. Leeds moved to appoint Gretar Steinsson, the former Spurs performance director, as their technical director soon after the takeover was confirmed in July. Plans to complement his role with a forward-thinking director of football could be fast-tracked in the Premier League.

Nicky Hammond, who operates under the title of interim recruitment advisor, has done a fine job overseeing transfers in a consultancy role and could yet be a contender for a more permanent job. There would be plenty of interest if the job went out to tender.

Stadium development would also swing back into focus. i understands further talks have been held with stakeholders in the city recently, a sign that Leeds are continuing their due diligence around a possible expansion of Elland Road over the 50,000 mark. That feels fairly essential if Leeds are to keep pace with Premier League middleweights.

There is quiet confidence that after the joy and pain of the Marcelo Bielsa era and Victor Orta’s big ideas that ultimately ended in big failure, Leeds are in a better place to establish themselves in the top flight if they do go up. But they have to get there first, and defeating QPR on Friday to ramp up the pressure on Ipswich feels essential.

“It’s really difficult to see yourselves in third place, a few points behind the team in second. Winning on Monday puts lots of pressure on Ipswich, especially if we win on Friday,” Firpo said. Leeds feel momentum is back with them in this crucial run-in.