Brutal truth for Leeds United and burning questions for Farke - Graham Smyth's QPR Verdict — YEP 27/4/24

It's a brutal fact but still a fact that automatic promotion from the Championship is earned over 10 gruelling months and can be lost in a matter of minutes. It's equally brutal to say, of a team with 90 points, that 20 minutes of uncharacteristically woeful football might just have lost it for Leeds United.

By Graham Smyth

You don't hit the 90 point mark in a league this treacherous by playing as badly all over the pitch as Leeds did for large parts of their penultimate game of the season at QPR. You don't concede fewer goals than almost everyone else in the division by gifting the time and space that QPR had en route to a 2-0 22 minute lead, or the set-piece freedom that made it a 4-0 rout later on. You don't score 80 goals by misplacing passes or replacing dynamic movement with the kind of static inertia we saw at Loftus Road. And you don't finish in the top two by crumbling at this point in the season.

Daniel Farke's fire was raging at full-time, he said, but he wasn't about to let it consume him. Automatic promotion has not, yet, gone up in smoke. Not mathematically. And even if it had, there would be the play-offs to think about and a young squad to pick up and point in the right direction again. But there are burning questions now about how this performance came about, because it was that bad and that ill-timed.

"It was not good enough, we were far away from our best but that's it, It's football, the Championship, you have some days like this," he said. "We'd prefer not to have it on game day 45, that's a fact. There is no reason to dwell too much. From next Monday on we keep going and make sure we are successful in our last home game."

By Monday perhaps the fanbase will be simmering rather than exploding, as they did at full-time on Friday night - those who were left of course. It looked and felt a little too like Bournemouth away, a real candidate for last season's nadir and an enduring image that summed up a rancid campaign. A half empty away end unloading on crushed-looking players stood before them, clapping meekly or simply taking the flak. It would be a crying shame for that to become the lasting picture of this campaign, which has delivered so many highs in comparison.

And with matters now in the hands of Ipswich Town, Leeds will spend a weekend looking long and hard at the QPR picture to figure out how to paint a completely different one in however many games they now have left.

Whether it's one, three or four, none can start as badly as this one did. For the second time in a week the start was problematic, to say the least. QPR had looked good in possession from the kick-off and with space to expoit they got at Leeds early on. Joe Rodon made an important header to clear Chris Willock's dangerous cross in the first warning. There wasn't a second, just a first goal for the hosts. The move started with a free-kick in the QPR half but quick as a flash they were deep in Leeds territory, Ilias Chair finding little opposition until Ilia Gruev tried to get in his way. The Moroccan jinked inside, though, and his shot from distance, with an unhelpful nick off Rodon, was too much for Illan Meslier. As the evening wore on, efforts on target proved too much for him too often.

Once again, the Whites found themselves facing a great big question mark. But unlike at the Riverside, this time the immediate response was not the required one. A Joel Piroe shot, well saved by Asmir Begovic, was about all Leeds could muster. Passes, like Junior Firpo's for Crysencio Summerville, were cut out. Summerville got in Willy Gnonto's way to halt a counter. But most of the football was being played by the home side, who threatened down both flanks, won free-kicks and created more threat than the side at the other end of the table. What their endeavour deserved, what Leeds really did not need, was a second goal. It came on 22 minutes, because Leeds' defensive solidity once again abandoned them. Lucas Andersen had too much time, too much space and neither Summerville nor Gruev did anywhere near enough to stop him from curling into the far corner.

That was the story all over the pitch in a first half that flew past a dazed looking Leeds. With Patrick Bamford's knee too bruised and swollen to let him sprint, his replacement Piroe didn't do enough up top. Georginio Rutter behind him was ineffective. Archie Gray and Gruev in the midfield looked overrun. The wingers were frustrated, Gnonto in particular suffering from early headloss. Sloppy passing infected even the most ordinarily reliable operators, like Rodon. Even when the Welshman did break lines, which he did on a number of occasions, the forwards made nothing of it. Summerville, the main man this season, got on the end of a perfect Gnonto back post cross and didn't do enough to beat Begovic.

Never was Leeds' most obvious lack more noticeable than when Firpo fizzed a dangerous ball through the six-yard area and physically raged because no one was near enough to do anything about it. The Sky camera panned to Bamford. It should perhaps have panned to Mateo Joseph.

Farke did not turn to the young striker at the break, or any of his substitutes. He sent the same team back out with a flea in their ear about doing the basics and Sam Byram and Gnonto were at the heart of a brighter start. QPR seemed content to play a little more within themselves, so Leeds were able to take the game into opposition territory. They even fashioned a chance, Ampadu's low cross touched on by Piroe to Rutter, who turned and shot wide from a great position.

But with the hour mark looming the hosts were back on the attack and Ampadu was making a pair of important blocks in his own area. That was when Farke changed it, replacing Byram with Joseph, sending Gray to right-back and moving Piroe into a midfield role. Joseph took three minutes to cause a problem, darting to the near post to meet a Firpo cross and bringing a save from Begovic, with a goal-kick the bizarre result.

It got no better than that. QPR scored another all-too-easy goal, this time from a near post corner and the head of Lyndon Dykes, and Leeds had officially fumbled a huge opportunity to pile the pressure on Ipswich. The fourth, from a free-kick, rubbed salt in the wound.

So what now? Saturday will be spent at Thorp Arch, talking about and analysing Friday's horror show. Was it purely the occasion and the mental strain? What’s to stop that being a problem again when the pressure comes, as it will, in the next game or games? Why were the basics so difficult for a team that has shown such ability? Why did the plan simply not work? And can Farke find a way to make Piroe the answer at 9, where he currently looks lost, if Bamford’s knee continues to bother him? On Monday Leeds will start working on a plan for Southampton and Farke will attempt to remind them of who they can be. A new picture has to be drawn. That might not be enough, of course, to prevent a play-off finish because the Whites have handed the mic to Ipswich and allowed them the next say, but whatever Farke and his players come up with has to be good. You don't get promoted, by any means, playing like this.