New-look Leeds lean on Gnonto and fighting spirit as Farke sees the positives — The Athletic 10/8/24

By Nancy Froston

It turns out Red Bull gives you… goals.

The new Championship season is here and with it came sunshine, bursts of rain and a chaotic six-goal opening-weekend draw for Leeds United at home against newly-promoted Portsmouth. It was far from the result they craved, a long way from the defensive strength manager Daniel Farke needs to see from his side as they go again for promotion after last season’s heartbreak at Wembley and, above all, it was exhausting.

Leeds hit the crossbar three times before opening the scoring through a Pascal Struijk penalty on 10 minutes but, from there, the contest’s momentum never stopped swinging between the two sides.

Portsmouth led 2-1 at the interval, courtesy of Elias Sorensen and Callum Lang, only for Leeds to respond with a Willy Gnonto effort just moments into the second half. Added time saw Lang convert an apparent winning penalty for the visitors, only for Brenden Aaronson’s equaliser at the death — and subsequent shot just wide of the target — to round out an erratic display.

Points dropped then but also a point rescued, and clear evidence that Leeds will need to improve if they are to dominate lesser opponents and return to the top flight next spring.

There was plenty to learn from their performance despite the wild swings from class to chaos. Mateo Joseph has cemented his role as Farke’s starting No 9 and did enough to retain that job. Gnonto has potential to assume the departed Crysencio Summerville’s ‘main-character energy’, as showcased with a thrilling display on the wing here. And Leeds are not lacking in being able to create big chances, despite the loss of Summerville, their 20-goal top scorer last season.

Their expected goals (xG) figure of 3.2 today was higher than in all but one of the 46 league games last season (3.7 in the 3-0 away win against Cardiff City in January).

Saturday’s occasion also provided a reminder of how Leeds fight back — and the way they do so has a pattern under Farke.

Last season, Leeds scored 67 of their 81 regular-season league goals through their forwards, with zero coming from midfielders. That is something they are looking to change this year, but the way the midfield feeds the front line is key. Their 99 through balls in the 46 league matches of 2023-24 were the most in the Championship. In this game, they played nine passes into the Portsmouth box (excluding crosses and corners).

That type of service is Plan A and when Leeds do it well, they are hard to stop.

Plan B in attack looks different.

Last season, Leeds mustered the seventh-fewest crosses in the second tier (756), but they often went wide when they were behind or struggling to break their opponents down. Part of that could be instinctive, with Summerville a key player capable of producing a special moment on the left, as well as Jaidon Anthony, his usual replacement, being Farke’s most-used substitute able to offer fresh legs last year.

Whatever the reasoning, Leeds look to go wide when they are up against it under Farke.

The six games where they made their most crosses last season were all ones where they were struggling offensively or went behind: against Blackburn Rovers (a 1-0 defeat, 35 crosses), West Bromwich Albion (1-0 defeat, 34 crosses), both meetings with Coventry City (2-1 defeat, 28 crosses; 1-1 draw, 27 crosses), against Sunderland (goalless draw, 26 crosses) and against Huddersfield Town (1-1 draw, 26 crosses).

And so, with Summerville now at West Ham United, and with Leeds twice going behind today, for a combined total of nine minutes, against Portsmouth, Gnonto became the main outlet through play on the left — as shown below. Leeds’ first equaliser came from working the ball down that wing, from where the Italian cut inside and shot past Will Norris.

Their 32 crosses into the box, split evenly between the game’s first and second halves, reflect the topsy-turvy nature of the match and the fact Leeds were not able to assert their dominance after those frenzied opening exchanges when the woodwork quivered three times.

The game descended into chaos again after Farke made three substitutions with 20 minutes of the 90 to go, something he said he would normally be criticised for doing too late, but on the whole the Leeds manager was pleased with his team’s response.

“I’m always a bit nervous when you have nearly a perfect pre-season,” Farke said.

“I was really respectful for the start of the game against a newly-promoted side. I was so pleased that we reacted in the right way; not arrogant, but fully switched-on with lots of intensity and aggressiveness. And then I also got the feeling all of a sudden, as if you can’t explain why you are behind at half-time… then (you have) to find the way back into the game. I was a bit nervous before the second half. But again it was another great reaction.

“To concede the third goal in the 92nd minute — normally in the Championship, you lose such a game. But we showed again the mentality to come back. In these terms, I am really happy and pleased with my lads and the way they reacted to adversity to equalise two times and a difficult story in the game for us. It was just a point, but there are many positives to take out of this. We will just allow ourselves to be a little bit disappointed today.”

This is a changed Leeds side from last season, when they were top in the middle of March but lost four of their final six regular-season games to miss out on automatic promotion, roused themselves to get to the play-off final but were then beaten 1-0 by Southampton, but familiar themes have been carried into the new campaign.

Avoiding a repeat of last year’s slow start will be key — West Brom away represents another tough test in their next league match in a week’s time — but their taste for using width and providing dramatic finishes looks to be here to stay.

After all, as Farke said, “We are Leeds United — we never do it the easy way.”