Leeds’ points total shows it’s been a very strong season. And yet… — The Athletic 2/5/24
By Phil Hay
A special place exists in hell for football’s
small-percentage chance.
You’ve seen the scenario. The mathematics are desperate, the
tea leaves are glaring, there’s every reason to make peace with reality but
despite reality, you can’t. Because maybe, just maybe…
To put it another way, who in Leeds is pleased that
automatic promotion from the Championship is toying with them? If Ipswich Town
finish off Leeds United on Saturday, might it have been preferable to have
taken the axe earlier this week? The next 48 hours will be like being dangled:
rational sense tempted to give in to that small-percentage chance — in case the
long shot comes to pass.
Leeds’ chance of beating Ipswich to second place in the
Championship is better than nothing, it must be said — but not greatly. Any
points gained by Ipswich against Huddersfield Town — already relegated and
reflecting on the fact that calling your neighbours L***s on Twitter only gets
you so far with a fanbase — send Ipswich up. Any points dropped by Leeds at
home to Southampton send Ipswich up. It’s so heavily weighted in one direction
that Leeds have their season staked on goal difference.
Perhaps Elland Road will get a minor miracle this weekend.
More likely is that Leeds come out of Saturday with another record they don’t
want. The Championship has a knack for pinning those to them. Five years ago,
they became the first second-tier team to win the first leg of a play-off
semi-final away from home and then lose on aggregate. That’s decades of history
defied right there. This time, they’re on the cusp of becoming the first
Championship side to go beyond 90 points and not win automatic promotion. It
sounds impossible. Based on the data, the division assumed it was.
Leeds’ points total is worth dwelling on because it’s part
of an uncomfortable juxtaposition. No one is denying that their season, in
bigger-picture terms, has been a very strong one. Even the cost of nine league
defeats is only relative to how fierce the pace at the top of the Championship
has been. Leeds won the title with nine losses in 2020. Leicester City have
taken the title with 10 this season. Last year, 93 points would have been
enough. Next year, it might be, too. But right here? The thinnest of threads is
keeping the club from the play-offs, watched by a fanbase who cannot rid
themselves of all they know about Leeds’ perennial misfortune.
The merit of their performance stems partly from the
standing start they had last summer and the issues that condemned them to a
slow first month. But somehow, Leeds saved their worst month of the season — in
points-per-game terms, anyway — for April, creating two trains of thought about
Daniel Farke. Setting up the chance of automatic promotion gets a gold star
because however strong his squad might be, going so close to second place was
no formality in a league with two rapid bandwagons above them. But having
manufactured that chance, Leeds have lacked the nerve to comprehensively
convert it.
Whatever he says publicly, Farke will be telling himself
that he and his squad have blown it. Leeds would not be lucky to go up because
no one accrues 93 points by accident —but in the context of this week, they
will be deeply fortunate if Ipswich contrive to drop their guts on Saturday.
Over the weekend, someone on X described the March
international break as “this season’s Crystal Palace moment”. That relates to
last April’s game against Palace at home: 1-0 up just before half-time, 5-1
down at the final whistle, everyone scattered from the battlefield and
relegation invited to swarm all over.
This April under Farke was not so bad, but it is a fact that
Leeds returned flatter, less fluent and less outwardly confident from the pause
for international matches. Farke could not find a way to bring back the
freshness. The reserves of his regular match-winners started to run dry. The
players looked like they might be feeling the squeeze and Queens Park Rangers
were active in going after that vulnerability at Loftus Road on Friday night.
Football doesn’t throw up many bona fide chokes, but that 4-0 defeat in London
felt like one. In searching for comparisons, it was horribly close to Marcelo
Bielsa and Wigan Athletic in 2019.
Management is not a forgiving endeavour; less so these days
than ever. The reputation of a coach tends to be defined by the critical
junctures. A big part of the reason Farke managed to seduce Leeds’ hierarchy in
interviews last summer was because his Championship titles at Norwich City were
very relevant currency. Farke had been there and done it; done it twice, to
prove that once was not a fluke. He might resent the anomaly of Leicester and
Ipswich proving so strong, but promotion was there for the taking when the
international break finished in March. It would be there for the taking had
Leeds beaten QPR. The nuance of a very good season is the poor finish it
yielded.
Injuries meant Leeds came back from the international break
in a weaker state than they went into it. That much is undeniable and it is
hard to think of a Championship side who wanted that two-week interlude less —
but what will Farke regret from the past month? Breaking up the centre-back
pairing of Ethan Ampadu and Joe Rodon for a 2-2 draw at Watford was a risky
call that went awry and set the tone in making Leeds seem more laboured than
they were when they moved to the top of the Championship in March. Going to QPR
and reprising a system involving Joel Piroe that had not worked in a 1-0 defeat
to Blackburn two weeks earlier felt like fingers crossed. The questions over
Farke’s ability to work a game with his bench felt more pertinent as the stakes
got higher. On reflection, it will eat away.
At Loftus Road, Farke did not want to talk about the
psychological effect of the rout on his players, but that is where a skilful
touch will be needed: first, to garner a performance against Southampton on
Saturday that makes sure Ipswich have to show up against Huddersfield; second,
to regroup for the play-offs if the play-offs are where this is going.
It’s old territory for Leeds but new territory for Farke and
he can rarely have been more aware of how public sentiment works. Find a way
out of the Championship and no one cares which road you took. Hit a dead end
and the boot in the bollocks carries the same dull weight — 90-point total or
not.