Leeds United's pre-Christmas Oxford United feast shows ingredients are all there, now to find the right away recipe — Yorkshire Post 22/12/24

By Stuart Rayner

Leeds United's 4-0 win to round off the year at Elland Road showed a squad whose parts are in good working order. The puzzle in Christmas week will be about finding the right balance elsewhere.

On their own turf, Leeds are imperious. Their ninth straight home win was their 17th out of 22 in 2024. To see how they played when they got out of cruise control and into the top gears, even just to look at the team-sheet, explained that quite easily.

"Those boys are Premiership players and potential Premiership players," said Oxford United caretaker manager Craig Short, who spent a large chunk of his career at that level. "That's best I've seen (in this season's Championship for) physicality and athleticism."

But Short's former club Sheffield United are top of the tree at Christmas having also won nine home games on the trot – in their case, without conceding. It might be at Leeds' toes, rather than their nose a la Jack Frost, but Burnley and Sunderland are nipping too.

“This league is relentless and if you want to be successful you have to be relentless yourself," said Farke. "It's not even half-time."

But this was not a day for humbuggery, this was about simply having a wonderful Christmastime at the last match many in the 36,646 crowd will attend until 2025. It was a great way to sign off.

A weak Oxford side were caught in the eye of the storm on a day when even making the ball sit still for restarts was tricky. Pickering-born Short was holding the fort with Des Buckingham's replacement as manager, Gary Rowett, in the door too late to do anything more meaningful than cast a beady eye.

But the quality of Leeds' goals and their football in general would have troubled even the best.

Manager Daniel Farke rowed back a touch after kicking off his press conference with one of his favourite English words – "perfect" – but there was no hyperbole when he called it "an impressive scoreline, an impressive performance.” It contained lots of individual triumphs.

Dan James was Dan James, maintaining the consistent excellence he has hit recently. His ninth-minute goal did not open the floodgates, but it was not for a lack of effort, persistence or quality on his part.

When Oxford finally did crumble, it was started by Jayden Bogle rounding off a lovely move of short, sharp passes with a smart 58th-minute finish. That is the potency Leeds have from right-back.

Often used on the left, right-footer Sam Byram tends to play the full-back role more conservatively, but not on Saturday, when everything clicked and at times he was popping up at inside-left.

Manor Solomon's emphatic finish for the fourth put the icing on the Christmas cake and rounded off a performance that showed he is starting to hit top form after an injury early in his season-long loan.

The man who almost immediately replaced him, Largie Ramazani, looks to be returning to the level he exploded into a Leeds shirt at before his own injury. He ought to have put two cherries on the top, but volleyed wide, then had a header saved.

Ethan Ampadu is earlier on that rust-scraping journey after his October knee injury, so his first 90 minutes since was important. It also let Leeds show off their squad depth.

His fitness rated at 50-50, Pascal Struijk was saved for Christmas, giving one of Leeds' best players a run-out at centre-back. Like Ramazani, Willy Gnonto and Mateo Joseph were giving short shifts to keep them ticking over but still fresh for Stoke City and Derby County.

As usual, Brenden Aaronson played like a Red Bull advert but this time with a goal – bursting through the lines to score the third – and an assist – returning the ball to Bogle for the second. He needed that, given Gnonto auditioned for his No 10 role when the pair swapped.

Ao Tanaka was his usual elegant and diligent self in midfield, even if his long-range shooting was at the normal level too when Leeds were carving Oxford open but unable to clear their plate.

Isaac Schmidt got minutes at left-back, the position he was supposedly bought to play but rarely has.

Just occasionally Leeds got too wrapped up in the spirit of giving, letting Przemyslaw Placheta balloon over from what looked like an offside position, just not to the linesman, Elliott Moore head a smidgeon too high to punish Illan Meslier for coming off his line, and Ciaron Brown head over a Tyler Goodrham free-kick that deserved better.

That apart, it was an excellent performance.

If you only ever saw Leeds at Elland Road, you would wonder why they have not booked the open-top bus already, but Farke has not quite found the right recipe away.

The ingredients are all there but being the chef at Christmas can be a pressurised job. Saturday’s was a performance to leave you salivating.