Southampton’s Martin vs Leeds’ Farke: A duel resting on a tactical knife-edge — The Athletic 22/5/24
By Nancy Froston
Just over two weeks ago, Southampton and Leeds United played
what turned out to be a dress rehearsal for this season’s Championship play-off
final. Visitors Southampton came out on top that day, winning 2-1.
And last September — before either club had gone on manic
unbeaten runs in an attempt to keep up in the race for the second tier’s two
automatic promotion places — Russell Martin also got the better of Leeds
counterpart Daniel Farke, 3-1, in the reverse fixture.
In reality, however, those results will count for little
when the teams walk out at Wembley on Sunday to decide who will go up to the
Premier League with Leicester City and Ipswich Town.
That was proved by Oxford United and Crawley Town in the
EFL’s other two play-off finals last weekend, having won promotion despite not
winning either of their league fixtures against opponents Bolton Wanderers and
Crewe Alexandra respectively.
Indeed, Oxford’s 5-0 defeat away to Bolton in March was so
bad it was 1) their heaviest of the season and 2) a game their manager Des
Buckingham said he could not, and now will not, ever watch back. They were
comfortably the better side in Saturday’s final, so that footage can safely be
consigned to the dustbin of history.
Things are somewhat tighter in the Championship,
particularly between Leeds and Southampton.
Maybe there is some mental benefit for Martin’s side in
knowing they went up to Elland Road and turned Leeds over so recently. Or maybe
it is fuel Farke can use.
The additional fun subplot to all this, beyond the tactical
scheming and the atmosphere fans will generate on the day, is that Farke and
Martin have history from their time together as manager and player at Norwich
City seven years ago.
As a double Championship-winning manager in his four years
at Carrow Road, it has not been a surprise that Farke has often referred to his
time there in press conferences this season as he tried to navigate the tricky
waters of fans’ emotions in the promotion charge. That Leeds knocked Norwich
out of these play-offs by a 4-0 aggregate scoreline just keeps adding layers to
the complexity of emotion that has coursed through this campaign.
That second leg win over Norwich at Elland Road, which even
the most optimistic of Leeds fans could not have predicted after the first leg
stalemate, showed Farke’s tactical nous.
In the first leg, with Patrick Bamford sidelined by a knee
injury, he started with Georginio Rutter at No 9 and Archie Gray playing as a
No 10. At home, Gray retained his place, but it was Joel Piroe starting ahead
of him, reflecting a more ambitious approach after unsettling the Norwich
defence off the bench in that goalless match at Carrow Road. The tactical tweak
worked perfectly.
And there lies the challenge in this tactical match-up
between the two managers.
Where Farke was criticised at times for taking too long to
make substitutions as Leeds slipped out of the automatic promotion slots, he is
more fluid in terms of his team’s style of play than Martin, whose absolute
commitment to Southampton’s formation and possession-heavy brand of football
has obviously worked well for them but can be unpicked if you get it right.
The goal Leeds scored against Southampton in that game this
month showed exactly how that can be done: press high and Southampton’s
commitment to playing out of the back can lead to mistakes, which are easily
punished. Piroe scored the equaliser that night after a turnover of possession
in Southampton territory.
But then comes the flip side.
When Southampton get it right against a high press,
committing players forward could leave Leeds exposed and easy to carve open.
Southampton have caused Farke’s men problems through the
attacking threat of Kyle Walker-Peters at right-back, as Junior Firpo knows
only too well from that game at Elland Road, and by playing the likes of Adam
Armstrong (three goals in the two games this season against Leeds) in behind.
Late runs by Will Smallbone made him particularly hard to pick up, too.
Both managers are smart enough not to let their history —
personal or tactical — cloud their emotions on Sunday. But Martin, who played
over 300 games for Norwich over nine years, has spoken publicly about how he
wishes his exit had panned out differently.
Farke froze Martin out of the first team early in his
2017-18 debut season before the Scotland international defender joined Rangers
on loan and then had his Norwich contract terminated by mutual consent before
the following season.
Martin has described that time at Norwich as the toughest of
his career. In his version of events, there was early friction with new manager
Farke when — on behalf of his team-mates and in his role as captain — he raised
questions about scheduling and travelling times during pre-season. Then came a
testing game that August against Millwall, where Farke substituted Martin 14
minutes into the second half after the side conceded three first-half goals.
Fans booed him off the pitch.
It would be his last senior game for Norwich.
“I wanted to keep my integrity and professionalism through
the whole thing,” Martin told The Athletic in 2019 while playing for MK Dons,
who he would later lead as player-manager and then manager. “There’s this myth
Daniel and I had a big fallout. I still shook his hand every day. We still had
a conversation about football every now and then. I didn’t agree with
everything he was doing, but I didn’t express it to the lads because that would
have a detrimental effect. I just stayed out of it.”
Farke, for his part, said ahead of the two teams meeting
last September: “On a personal level, it is always great. He was a great player
and a great human being.”
After Norwich won promotion at the end of the 2018-19
season, Martin is said to have sought out Farke and shaken his hand with no
bitterness between them.
On Sunday they will likely do the same again, for the third
time this season, but only one will leave Wembley with the satisfaction of
their biggest win yet under their belt.