Leeds’ points total shows it’s been a very strong season. And yet… — The Athletic 2/5/24

By Phil Hay

A special place exists in hell for football’s small-percentage chance.

You’ve seen the scenario. The mathematics are desperate, the tea leaves are glaring, there’s every reason to make peace with reality but despite reality, you can’t. Because maybe, just maybe…

To put it another way, who in Leeds is pleased that automatic promotion from the Championship is toying with them? If Ipswich Town finish off Leeds United on Saturday, might it have been preferable to have taken the axe earlier this week? The next 48 hours will be like being dangled: rational sense tempted to give in to that small-percentage chance — in case the long shot comes to pass.

Leeds’ chance of beating Ipswich to second place in the Championship is better than nothing, it must be said — but not greatly. Any points gained by Ipswich against Huddersfield Town — already relegated and reflecting on the fact that calling your neighbours L***s on Twitter only gets you so far with a fanbase — send Ipswich up. Any points dropped by Leeds at home to Southampton send Ipswich up. It’s so heavily weighted in one direction that Leeds have their season staked on goal difference.

Perhaps Elland Road will get a minor miracle this weekend. More likely is that Leeds come out of Saturday with another record they don’t want. The Championship has a knack for pinning those to them. Five years ago, they became the first second-tier team to win the first leg of a play-off semi-final away from home and then lose on aggregate. That’s decades of history defied right there. This time, they’re on the cusp of becoming the first Championship side to go beyond 90 points and not win automatic promotion. It sounds impossible. Based on the data, the division assumed it was.

Leeds’ points total is worth dwelling on because it’s part of an uncomfortable juxtaposition. No one is denying that their season, in bigger-picture terms, has been a very strong one. Even the cost of nine league defeats is only relative to how fierce the pace at the top of the Championship has been. Leeds won the title with nine losses in 2020. Leicester City have taken the title with 10 this season. Last year, 93 points would have been enough. Next year, it might be, too. But right here? The thinnest of threads is keeping the club from the play-offs, watched by a fanbase who cannot rid themselves of all they know about Leeds’ perennial misfortune.

The merit of their performance stems partly from the standing start they had last summer and the issues that condemned them to a slow first month. But somehow, Leeds saved their worst month of the season — in points-per-game terms, anyway — for April, creating two trains of thought about Daniel Farke. Setting up the chance of automatic promotion gets a gold star because however strong his squad might be, going so close to second place was no formality in a league with two rapid bandwagons above them. But having manufactured that chance, Leeds have lacked the nerve to comprehensively convert it.

Whatever he says publicly, Farke will be telling himself that he and his squad have blown it. Leeds would not be lucky to go up because no one accrues 93 points by accident —but in the context of this week, they will be deeply fortunate if Ipswich contrive to drop their guts on Saturday.

Over the weekend, someone on X described the March international break as “this season’s Crystal Palace moment”. That relates to last April’s game against Palace at home: 1-0 up just before half-time, 5-1 down at the final whistle, everyone scattered from the battlefield and relegation invited to swarm all over.

This April under Farke was not so bad, but it is a fact that Leeds returned flatter, less fluent and less outwardly confident from the pause for international matches. Farke could not find a way to bring back the freshness. The reserves of his regular match-winners started to run dry. The players looked like they might be feeling the squeeze and Queens Park Rangers were active in going after that vulnerability at Loftus Road on Friday night. Football doesn’t throw up many bona fide chokes, but that 4-0 defeat in London felt like one. In searching for comparisons, it was horribly close to Marcelo Bielsa and Wigan Athletic in 2019.

Management is not a forgiving endeavour; less so these days than ever. The reputation of a coach tends to be defined by the critical junctures. A big part of the reason Farke managed to seduce Leeds’ hierarchy in interviews last summer was because his Championship titles at Norwich City were very relevant currency. Farke had been there and done it; done it twice, to prove that once was not a fluke. He might resent the anomaly of Leicester and Ipswich proving so strong, but promotion was there for the taking when the international break finished in March. It would be there for the taking had Leeds beaten QPR. The nuance of a very good season is the poor finish it yielded.

Injuries meant Leeds came back from the international break in a weaker state than they went into it. That much is undeniable and it is hard to think of a Championship side who wanted that two-week interlude less — but what will Farke regret from the past month? Breaking up the centre-back pairing of Ethan Ampadu and Joe Rodon for a 2-2 draw at Watford was a risky call that went awry and set the tone in making Leeds seem more laboured than they were when they moved to the top of the Championship in March. Going to QPR and reprising a system involving Joel Piroe that had not worked in a 1-0 defeat to Blackburn two weeks earlier felt like fingers crossed. The questions over Farke’s ability to work a game with his bench felt more pertinent as the stakes got higher. On reflection, it will eat away.

At Loftus Road, Farke did not want to talk about the psychological effect of the rout on his players, but that is where a skilful touch will be needed: first, to garner a performance against Southampton on Saturday that makes sure Ipswich have to show up against Huddersfield; second, to regroup for the play-offs if the play-offs are where this is going.

It’s old territory for Leeds but new territory for Farke and he can rarely have been more aware of how public sentiment works. Find a way out of the Championship and no one cares which road you took. Hit a dead end and the boot in the bollocks carries the same dull weight — 90-point total or not.