Leeds may hate the play-offs, but they must find a way to bounce back for them — The Athletic 5/5/24
By Phil Hay
There was fight at Elland Road: the most convincing display
of it in the West Stand, where a steward tried to confiscate an inflatable
doughnut but fell foul of a crowd ready to scrap for its survival.
On the pitch? Not so much. And the twitching vibe which has
infiltrated Leeds United’s dressing room was there to see as the last embers of
automatic promotion cooled to nothing on the regular season’s final day. Those
who stayed behind after full time tried to rev it up as the players walked
around the pitch, a constructive rocket up the a***, as if to remind them the
race wasn’t run. Because Leeds had not given the impression that they were
nicely primed to go again.
Smile, it’s the play-offs; the time of year when Leeds find
reality imitating nightmares.
With the numbers in attendance dwindling as the clock ticked
towards the end of a 2-1 home defeat against Southampton yesterday, what other
thought except that thousands were going home to dig out their brown trousers?
It’s Norwich City over two legs in the semi-finals now, away
next Sunday then here four days later. Daniel Farke against the club he once
breathed oxygen into, bang at the centre of the narrative. And limited
prospects of success if the retreat of form and verve in the last month of the
regular Championship season cannot be reversed.
They hate the play-offs around here, genuinely hate them,
but the tightrope Leeds are now walking is not predominantly about that.
What the Elland Road crowd sees is a team passively
free-wheeling, in sharp contrast to the early part of the year, and nothing in
either last week’s schooling at Queens Park Rangers or this low-octane loss to
Southampton — potential Wembley opponents if they beat West Bromwich Albion in
the other semi-final — cast Leeds as a team in the process of regrouping, or a
team who knew they would be OK whether Ipswich Town pipped them to the second
automatic promotion place or not.
Farke is wearing his bravest face, with a week now between
games to show that all will end well and that his confidence is not a bluff.
Rationally, yesterday was not set up to go spectacularly
differently. A point at home was all Ipswich needed against relegation
candidates Huddersfield Town to make automatic promotion theirs. The version of
Huddersfield they walked all over at Portman Road was the type of Terrier a
wild animal would choose to be hunted by.
But still, the functionality of Farke’s team has been waning
gradually. Individual form feels more bottled up. Attacks are prising Leeds
open and hurting them in areas where they were not hurting before. When Jack
Stephens stepped past their midfield early in the second half, the crowd had
lost count of the number of times Southampton had driven a coach, horses and
trailing wind through that part of the pitch. Something about Southampton has
that effect on them.
Later, Farke was subjected to the surreal sound of the fans
urging a shot whenever the ball was passed — anyone, everyone, somebody hit it.
Confidence has receded, he admitted, and not only among his players. He did not
want to say that Leeds threw automatic promotion away — that having been top in
mid-March, it was a waste to have let Ipswich and Leicester City off the hook.
Russell Martin, Southampton’s manager and a former player
under Farke at Norwich, backed him up. “It’s so difficult this season,” Martin
said. “We went 25 games unbeaten and finished fourth.”
The Championship’s top four might never be so ferociously
strong again as it’s been this season.
Farke’s explanation for yesterday’s struggle to stop
Southampton finding space in the pocket in front of his back four was that he
had asked his side to gamble more than usual positionally, to push forward on
the basis that a draw was no use to them. Duly, neither Ilia Gruev nor Glen
Kamara was reliably on hand when Southampton flooded into the gaps.
Adam Armstrong scored their first goal from a low Che Adams
cross. Four other Southampton players were hovering unattended behind him. Joel
Piroe equalised soon after, applying the boot-through-the-ball trick which is
definitely his strength, but Southampton won the game 14 minutes later. Kyle
Walker-Peters chased a long ball over the top properly. Junior Firpo didn’t.
Walker-Peters skinned him and gave Will Smallbone, a problem for Leeds before
then, a side-footed tap-in.
Farke’s comments implied that when it came to his game plan
for the semi-final first leg at Carrow Road, he would purposely tighten Leeds
up. It goes without saying that conceding goals so cheaply as this would kill
them in the play-offs. He has his hands full in the days ahead: work to do on
form, tactics, mental doubts and tension.
“I’ve never lost in the play-offs,” he joked, which is true.
Just ignore the reason why. “My only focus is that it feels like this team is
the third-best team in the league. We fully deserve to reward ourselves with
the big prize (of promotion). This group deserves it. This club deserves it.”
Leeds, though, signed off from game 46 of 2023-24 as a club
unsure of their fate.
As for the inflatable doughnut’s fate, no news — except to
say that Elland Road has upped its standards. Nine years ago, the most
eye-opening thing circulating through the place on the season’s last day was a
blow-up doll.
The next time Leeds play here, it will not be a night for
passing round inflatables. An inhaler might be better.