How Leeds United fell short: Farke’s full-on first season, 49ers’ influence and what now? — The Athletic 26/5/24

Phil Hay

The middle of last August was a pressure point for Leeds United, and a time when the club’s season seemed in most danger of spinning out of control.

Willy Gnonto, their Italian winger, had been ostracised after asking to leave. A legal dispute involving Luis Sinisterra left a second of their more valuable attacking assets to train in isolation. Others in the building were agitating to get out and incoming transfer business was incomplete. In numerous respects, Leeds were a classic of the genre of a side picking up the pieces after Premier League relegation.

Around that time, one of their players went to Daniel Farke to discuss the manager’s selection policy and gripe about who had been playing where in the early weeks of the Championship term. Farke listened and then spoke his mind. I’ve got people on strike, he said. I’ve got people who want to be elsewhere. I’ve got a half-baked squad and the window closes soon. But if you’re not happy and you want to leave, it’s no problem for me to sell you tomorrow. Just say the word.

That was that, and the conversation behind closed doors would be a marker for how Leeds would operate on Farke’s watch. The promotion he envisaged, the promotion he had all but promised in private, was not going to be won by committee. The club would revolve around him: his calls, his rules, his prerogative to have the final say on anything affecting the dressing room. In that way, promotion would live or die.

Leeds went with it, investing themselves fully in Farke and trusting his confidence. For many months, their faith promised to pay off. But a costly wobble at the season’s business end manifested itself in a play-off final defeat to Southampton today, a feeling the club know so well.

In their mind’s eye, Leeds knew how they wanted this afternoon to look: the scenes of euphoria theirs to soak up, rather than Southampton’s. Instead, after a 1-0 loss, Archie Gray was in tears. Ilia Gruev was in tears. Farke’s players wondered around in a daze with no idea of where to put themselves. And old truism at Elland Road was proven again. Leeds, plainly, cannot hack the play-offs.

Another summer of reflection awaits ahead of another year in the wilderness.

Farke’s insistence on having autonomy at Elland Road can be traced back to the earliest conversations he had with Leeds when the club were trying to decide which manager would work best for them in the Championship.

Of all the candidates spoken to, Farke exuded the most self-confidence. Leeds’ interview panel was fully stacked, including new chairman Paraag Marathe and Jed York, one of the most senior figures behind the San Francisco 49ers NFL franchise and a major Leeds shareholder, but Farke chose not to wow them with a long presentation about tactics, vision or philosophy. In his opinion, which he expressed openly, two prior Championship titles won with Norwich City were proof of his suitability.

ast month, when Farke said in a press conference those two titles were “no guarantee” he would take Leeds up, a staff member with knowledge of the summer’s interview process — who, like others who spoke to The Athletic for this article, asked not to be named to avoid damaging relationships — chuckled at the comment. A guarantee of promotion was more or less what Farke had given the panel in June, but what he did not realise was that Leeds were about to head into an unprecedented Championship year, a season which generated one of the tightest races for automatic promotion on record.

Farke, understandably, portrayed himself as a Championship specialist, though he spent more time talking about wanting to prove himself in the Premier League. Leeds, after 12 torrid months and the loss of their place in the top flight, were seduced by the thought of stable, dependable presence in the dug-out. Last season, Jesse Marsch had fallen victim to the flaws of his counter-pressing ideals. He was clinging on long before he was sacked in February 2023. A short stint as Marsch’s replacement broke Spaniard Javi Gracia, to the extent that the Spaniard was virtually in tears after a 4-1 beating at Bournemouth and struggled to bring himself to talk to the squad. Leeds sacked him the following day.

Sam Allardyce, a veteran of English club football, saw the club through their final four matches but the die was cast and Leeds were cooked. One source explained how after a 3-1 defeat to West Ham United in their penultimate game, Allardyce “went into the dressing room and pretty much said, ‘Well done lads, you’ve fucked it.'” He wasn’t wrong. Tottenham Hotspur at home was all Leeds had left, and Allardyce could tell that no miracle was coming. Three years in the Premier League ended with Rasmus Kristensen marking ghosts as Spurs sealed a 4-1 win in injury-time.

Within a fortnight of relegation, a deal was finalised for long-time chairman Andrea Radrizzani to sell Leeds to the 49ers Enterprises investment fund, of which Marathe was the front man. Though a 100 per cent takeover would not be formally completed until September, EFL approval for it arrived on July 17.

By then, the 49ers were already running Leeds, with Radrizzani out of the picture and involved in a buy-out of Sampdoria in Italy. A boardroom in which Radrizzani and 49ers Enterprises had been increasingly at odds was now the domain of one single shareholder — and free from divisions.

The 49ers are regarded as inherently strategic in the way they run their NFL operation. They see long-term planning as a virtue and invest heavily in data, both financially and operationally. With Radrizzani gone from Elland Road, their ideas and methods were free to be applied to Leeds with more vigour than in their days as a minority stakeholder.

The Sportsology Group, an analytics firm for whom Chelsea’s former director of football operations Mike Forde is CEO, did some groundwork on the managerial hunt. It was Forde who had first recommended Leeds to Marathe as an investment opportunity back in 2018. One of the individuals in the 49ers’ investment group, ex-baseballer Michael Schwimer, was the founder of Big League Advantage, a U..S company which specialises in sports data and predictive analysis.

The 49ers teed up Robbie Evans, a man who had worked for them previously, to come into Elland Road as chief strategy officer, with a focus on the club’s playing side and the use of data. Sources have told The Athletic that recruitment will be ‘Moneyball’ orientated to an extent, with the aim of ensuring that analysis combined with the club’s budget finds better value for money.

In picking a new manager, however, there was only so much time the 49ers could devote to playing the field. Negotiating EFL approval for their takeover and dealing with Radrizzani took up the first seven weeks of the summer. Farke was not appointed until July 4, a matter of hours before Leeds’ first pre-season training session. United would not complete their first signing, midfielder Ethan Ampadu, for another 15 days.

The 49ers respected Farke’s record. They accepted the need to be efficient in making an appointment. Ideally, they would have preferred to appoint someone to the technical director’s role, partially replacing Victor Orta in a revised structure, before choosing a first-team boss but time was too short, and Gretar Steinsson stepped into that job after Farke’s arrival.

One of Steinsson’s rivals for the technical director position thought Leeds had made a mistake by not going after Steve Cooper as head coach. Cooper was under contract at Nottingham Forest but seemed forever on the verge of being sacked. Making that happen, though, would have taken patience and compensation, neither of which Leeds could afford in spades. United made attempts to court Graham Potter, fresh from his dismissal by Chelsea, but failed to convince him to engage seriously with them.

With the decision to appoint Farke made, pragmatism was applied in equal measure to the club’s recruitment of new players. In the Premier League, Leeds had taken too many risks. Some, like Brazilian wizard Raphinha, proved exceptionally good business. Others, like many of the purchases made for Marsch, did not. Leeds have not commented on the news last month that they had withdrawn their appeal over an award of £24.5million in compensation to Jean-Kevin Augustin, a consequence of their shambolic move to sign the striker in 2020, but it might be that accepting defeat in that case — one they seemed destined to lose — was indicative of the 49ers trying to cut the nonsense and face facts.

In the transfer market, Leeds went safe, solid and fairly heavy: Ampadu for £7million ($8.8m) from Chelsea, Joel Piroe from Swansea City for £10.5million, Glen Kamara from Rangers for £5million, Joe Rodon on loan from Tottenham Hotspur. Farke insisted on approving all of their business — which was why he had specifically asked for the more old-fashioned title of manager, rather than head coach. He looked to his old club Norwich with bids for Max Aarons and Kenny McLean, neither of which came off. He took Sam Byram on a free transfer following the defender’s release from Carrow Road, a transfer Leeds might have opposed had Farke not been on the scene. As Byram admitted himself, his injury record was a big red flag.

Farke imposed himself in other ways too, none of them hugely unconventional and all done for a reason. The canteen at Leeds’ Thorp Arch training ground was marked out as an area for players and backroom staff only. Even club directors weren’t allowed to wander in as they pleased. Changes were made to the arrangements for the squad to sign charity merchandise, to avoid distractions around training. Everyone was expected to sit down together before pre-match meals began. Farke also tried to manage the PR in certain instances. Revealing in advance that first-choice centre-back Pascal Struijk would miss Leeds’ home game against Plymouth Argyle in November because of a hernia operation was done deliberately to stop his absence from the teamsheet affecting the atmosphere at kick-off.

He would insist at short notice on flying to Millwall away, even though trains had already been booked. He would be adamant that getting through a crazy spell of travelling in February — Swansea City away, Bristol City away and Plymouth away twice in the space of 15 days — would require planes and additional hotel stays. Leeds had the budget to grant those requests and were repaid with four away wins. Up until the end of March, when they hit the top of the table for the first time, his team seemed to be peaking perfectly.

People who have watched the 49ers operate since they took control of Leeds say much the same thing: that they are hands-on and attentive but not inclined to interfere unduly. To quote an individual who saw the Ampadu signing play out: “They knew what they knew about football, and they were sensible enough to know that they knew very little. Because of that, they put the right football people in place.” Nick Hammond, hired as a transfer consultant, was a key figure in the summer rebuild: well connected, a good communicator and difficult to ruffle. But nothing went over the line without crossing Farke’s desk first.

Farke’s style of man-management can be strict and, on occasions, stubborn but he is not prone to reading the riot act regularly. One of his assistants, head of performance Chris Domogalla, is said to play bad cop from time to time, though Leeds’ performances and results did not call for much of that. The attention to detail was not on the level of Marcelo Bielsa’s, but Farke’s tactics delivered points regularly. As one source said: “He tells you what he wants and if you’re doing what he wants, he’s not going to hassle you.”

At certain junctures, however, he showed the capacity to be ruthless. It was Farke’s decision to ban Gnonto from first-team training after the Italian made it clear he wanted Leeds to accept bids for him from Everton. It was Farke’s decision to isolate Sinisterra while the Colombian tried to demonstrate to Leeds his contract legally entitled him to leave Elland Road on loan (Sinisterra would later join Bournemouth on deadline day). In January, Charlie Cresswell’s dissatisfaction at being Farke’s fourth-choice central defender manifested itself in him being temporarily omitted from match-day squads. Farke picked his fights carefully but picked them all the same.

His control over squad-building extended to the proposed renewals of player contracts. At the outset of this season, veteran campaigners Liam Cooper and Luke Ayling were under the impression, on the strength of conversations with Leeds’ hierarchy, that they were both likely to receive an extra year at the end of deals which expire this summer. As time went on, Farke took a different view and saw less value in keeping them on board. Ayling left on loan for Middlesbrough in January. Cooper will almost certainly leave Elland Road as a free agent in the weeks ahead (although the defender appreciated the opportunity of a farewell appearance in Leeds’ play-off semi-final against Norwich City, and messaged Farke personally to thank him).

Under Farke, other players thrived in a big way. Daniel James, a £25million signing in 2021, recovered from several years of rudderless progress with 13 goals and seven assists. Crysencio Summerville’s influence exploded so spectacularly that he was named Championship player of the year last month. Georginio Rutter — very much the wrong signing for £30m when Leeds were in deep trouble last season — came good, albeit at a level where a £30million forward should. Rodon turned in the best campaign of his career and Byram’s stints of service made him a savvy free transfer. Having allowed Gnonto back into the fold, Farke saw the 20-year-old’s mojo resurface at the end of January.

There is no denying that when the dust settled at the end of last summer’s transfer window, Farke had one of the strongest squads in the Championship. There is no denying either that the pursuit of automatic promotion wobbled badly towards the end, scuppered horribly by a battering at Queens Park Rangers on April 26. Though Farke had a dig at VAR and refereeing decisions after the initial leg of their play-off against Norwich — “If we’d used VAR (in the Championship) we’d wouldn’t be in the play-offs” — it was equally true that Leeds blew repeated opportunities to finish first or second regardless.

Defensively, in regular league fixtures, Farke’s side deteriorated from the end of March onwards. Their finishing dropped off too. Individual form dipped as collective effectiveness sagged. Was it fatigue? Was it a loss of nerve? Was it end-zone fever? He was never able to say definitively. Even so, many of the numbers speak for themselves. Leeds won 27 of their 46 regular fixtures and accrued 90 points. They scored 81 goals and finished with a goal difference of plus 38. They came within two games of going unbeaten at Elland Road and their streak without a league defeat from the start of January ran for 96 days. In a typical season, it would have been automatic promotion form all ends up; title form on certain occasions, and his ability to regroup for United’s play-off semi-final against Norwich was a feather in his cap.

It is one of a number of reasons why sources close to the 49ers have indicated over the past few weeks that they were minded to stick with Farke however the season ended. He has three years left on his contract and Leeds’ owners believe the general picture of his performance is a positive one, regardless of Sunday’s defeat. They like his demeanour and temperament, and they appreciate the fact that he does not often talk himself into trouble with the media. They have already discussed plans for pre-season in Europe. Moreover, to this point they have heavily backed him, with recruitment and a squad Farke specifically asked for. And results as a whole were very strong.

Much as they would have gladly taken it, the 49ers did not demand that Farke find a way out of the Championship at the first attempt. It was simply accepted that if Leeds took more than one go at escaping the EFL, profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) would bite them harder. Sales of certain players will be necessary this summer, the only way of balancing United’s accounts within the limits of the EFL’s financial rules, and the next tranche of player investment will be aimed at promotion again. Summerville is among those expected to exit. The 49ers still expect to get the top-flight asset they wanted, albeit by way of an extended detour through a lower league.

For Farke, defeat to Southampton today removes the freedom to step back and breathe. The past month was his lesson in the maddening tension and unpredictability of Leeds, a club who have now failed to win the play-offs in six attempts. “Sofa, cake and coffee” is Farke’s way of winding down but June is almost upon him, and there will not be much time for that.