Leeds’ season starts in two weeks, but predicting how they fare is riddled with unknowns - The Athletic 24/7/23

By Phil Hay

The difficulty in predicting the outcome of a football season brings to mind a light-hearted exchange between Kalvin Phillips and Gary Rowett which made minor headlines in 2018.

The setting was the EFL’s new-season launch day and Phillips, the Leeds United midfielder, and Rowett — then-manager of fellow Championship side Stoke City — did the rounds on behalf of their clubs. Unusually for an event of that nature, it produced a bit of a story.

Leeds and Stoke were to play each other at Elland Road on the first weekend and Phillips, ever the optimist, fancied his team’s chances. Rowett laughed and told him to swing by the bookies. Stoke were pre-season favourites for the second tier’s title because they had been at it all summer — writing cheques, buying players, spending like it was promotion or bust after relegation the previous May. “He obviously hasn’t seen the odds,” Rowett joked.

All good fun, and this is what transpired: Leeds made the play-offs, Stoke finished 16th, Rowett was sacked in mid-season and, as night follows day, the real winners were the bookies, the only vested interest in football that never seems to lose.

Which brings us nicely to Leeds and the season in front of them.

The bookies have them as second-favourites to win the Championship, but as with Stoke five years ago there is an air of relegated-club-automatically-fancied-before-a-ball-is-kicked about that confidence because, truthfully, who can say? What is a rational or legitimate expectancy of a squad that is far from finished but blessed with pockets of clear talent, managed by a coach who knows his way around this particular jungle? Where is the smart money going?

Leeds’ new boss Daniel Farke wants patience and also wants realism, both of which he would benefit from. However, patience at Elland Road never lasts far beyond the point where it is called for. Like Stoke in 2018, Leeds have certain advantages which could get them promoted — a large wage bill, a bigger budget than most teams below the Premier League, parachute payments and talented players retained thus far — and, while they have not been writing cheques as freely as Stoke did back then, buying Ethan Ampadu for £7million from Chelsea on Wednesday showed a certain depth of pocket.

But that is one signing for Leeds with less than two weeks before the season begins, back in the EFL after three years in the Premier League. The revolution of new ownership and beyond is kind of piecemeal. And Farke, you can tell, is not ready to shout the odds.

Monaco of France’s Ligue 1 up the road in York was Saturday’s friendly date for Leeds and, although the decision by some bright spark to hand out vuvuzelas to a 6,000 crowd made a circus of the atmosphere, these are telling moments for Farke, not so far off the final touches before his team start to engage in serious football where vuvuzelas are sacrilege.

His squad was as full as it could have been given all that is happening in the background, but Farke knows and says openly that the goodbyes this summer are not done. On that basis, the hellos have to intensify quickly if the man who took Norwich up twice in recent seasons is to re-enter the Championship properly forearmed.

The candour of his post-match chat after losing 2-0 to Monaco amplified the complexity of the situation he inherited when he signed a four-year contract on July 4.

Tyler Adams is still here but is recovering from hamstring surgery and, Farke revealed, could be out until after the season’s first international break in early September. He will certainly miss the start of the season, as will Jack Harrison, who is rehabbing from a hip problem. The reality with two key footballers who Leeds desperately want to keep is that even if they succeed in doing so, it will be a while before they can use either of them. Junior Firpo is out for five weeks too.

Then there was Max Wober, the calibre of centre-back most Championship managers would be happy building a defence around. He did not play in York and was missing, Farke said, because of a “transfer situation” — one the German expected to resolve itself quickly.

Wober is now in the process of finalising a year-long loan to Borussia Monchengladbach, so that’s another £10million well spent. Everton like Wilfried Gnonto but he played in the second half against Monaco — and was as tricky as Leeds remember him — and the advantage in trying to hold onto him is that his deal contains no relegation-related release clause. Nobody has tested Leeds over Luis Sinisterra yet.

In full health and full flight, these are names that would give Farke cause for optimism — assets easily good enough for the second tier. But Leeds have always been at the mercy of wondering who out there, if anyone, starts bidding for their players and when. Wober is the latest to talk his way out.

Monaco, who finished sixth in Ligue 1 last term, got second-half goals from Wissam Ben Yedder and Kevin Volland. What Farke got in the first half was a fluent showing with good understanding and evidence of a plan which his players seem to have digested and followed. Ampadu did a nice job of pulling strings and recycling possession, a signing Farke is pleased with. It was more ragged after half-time and Monaco, without ever tearing it up, produced the game’s only goals — the second a showboat of a header from Volland.

As a whole, the friendly showed ways in which it is coming together for Leeds and ways in which it so far has not.

“I’m optimistic, otherwise I wouldn’t have signed my contract,” Farke said. “But I think it’s also important to speak about the challenges and what needs to be done, instead of glorifying too much.

“It’s important to speak about the reality. This club will always have the ambition to be an established Premier League side but the reality is the club has been relegated to the Championship and are in a difficult situation with contracts. We have to be open and honest to speak about it. I know the situation is difficult but I also know we have potential, with quality in the background. We’re all working unbelievably hard.

“There’s no guarantee that this will happen in the short term but I’m a deep believer in hard work and that you’ll always get rewards from what you invest. We’ve shown that we will invest a lot.”

It is possible to look at Leeds under Farke and see both promise and burning questions.

Who in this squad is his Teemu Pukki — a striker good for 20-plus Championship goals? He tried Georginio Rutter and Patrick Bamford there on Saturday but neither classes as a dead-cert up front.

Who in his squad is his No 10, the creative mind in central areas who ducks and weaves and serves a finish in front of him? Farke is well covered in wide areas but less so through the middle. “Several positions,” he said when asked where he wanted to focus his attention after recruiting Wales international Ampadu, who has spent the past two seasons playing on loan in Italy’s Serie A. “We need to strengthen the squad. We need some additions.”

All of which leaves a very vague gut feeling about how this is going to go, a game of second-guessing with Leeds’ first fixture (at home to Cardiff City) now 13 days away.

That was the scenario in 2018, as Phillips and Rowett joshed with each other at the EFL’s launch. Stoke had spent heavily and were highly-fancied but nobody was quite sure what Leeds would become.

Nobody realised that, against Stoke on that opening weekend, Bielsaball would hit the Championship like a meteorite.

It might be too much to expect the asteroid from Farke when Cardiff come to town, but a clearer picture — and one that breeds confidence — would do everyone good.