Leeds United v Queens Park Rangers: Madness of Championship life leaves Daniel Farke no time for doubt — Yorkshire Post 9/11/24

By Stuart Rayner

Things had been going extremely well for Leeds United after October's international break but all it took was one defeat at Millwall on Wednesday to bring the doubters and critics back out, especially on social media.

Such is life at Elland Road that a solitary defeat, even in the notoriously inconsistent Championship, can spread panic. Two on the trot is not worth thinking about – especially with a fortnight to stew on it as international football takes over again.

A nerve-settling home win over out-of-form Queens Park Rangers is very much called for on Saturday.

Calmness in the Leeds maelstrom has always come naturally to Daniel Farke, a manager with a Championship record that justifies self-assurance. After the 1-0 defeat at Millwall he emphasised "one unlucky result" rather than his side's inability to turn possession into goals.

That Mark Robins, who transformed Coventry City over a second spell which stretched just short of eight years, was sacked on Thursday shows how irrational the Championship can be.

Two promotions against a backdrop of perma-crisis, a Championship play-off final and FA Cup semi-final which went to penalties against Manchester United, and a history of kicking on from slow starts after selling assets such as Gustavo Hamer and current European flavour of the month Viktor Gyokeres were no protection to Robins, sacked after a one-match losing streak.

Such madness does not leave Farke worrying about keeping his own board onside, though.

"If I needed to explain to our key people how football works, how the Championship works, how difficult it is to win games I would be in real trouble!” he says.

"Our owners know exactly how difficult this league is, how difficult it is to work for Leeds United, how heavy this shirt is for Leeds United.

"Marcelo (Bielsa) was here for a proper amount of time (still only three years, eight months before the sack) but over the last two decades it was a long time if you survived over three months as manager.

"If I need to explain how difficult it is at this level it would just be a waste of time so I'm just concentrating on explaining to my players how to play football and how to be successful and to develop them and concentrate on them. This is my only focus.

"I've never in my whole life wherever I've worked been in a situation where I've thought I need to convince my board or owners that I'm doing a proper job.

"If they think I'm doing a proper job they're happy, if not they have to go for someone else. I'm quite relaxed about that.

"Of course we're talking about what's necessary to do in terms of building the squad and we're talking about the games. They're also disappointed if we lose a game and unbelievably happy when we win.

" We praise players who have top performances and we're all disappointed once a player puts in a poor performance. We're all football fans so it's not like just because we work professionally in this game we're without emotion.

"But overall there is no need to explain what you're doing. Let the work speak for itself."

That work has been very rushed this week.

Leeds played in south London on Wednesday night and Farke looked bleary-eyed speaking to the media on Thursday afternoon. Imagine how the people running around felt.

He has had to work on the weaknesses on show at Millwall without being able to do any training-ground work on them.

“We've only had one day to prepare in a theoretical way so you can't have seven meetings in the classroom to talk about QPR," he says.

"And you don't have a training session to prepare because Friday was more or less just a recovery session and you can't work tactically because it would be too exhausting for the players.

"But this is what you face if you play in the Championship.

"Last season we played the amount of games a team that won the Champions League would have.

"When you first do this you sometimes make mistakes or you have to learn how to find a solution so you don't overload the players on the training pitch or in the classroom.

"You need different skills when you can't spend that much time on the training pitch. You need strength in the classroom to bring it into the heads and hearts of the players.

"It's also not that easy for the players. We always look good when we have time in the week, time on the training pitch to prepare perfectly.

"But if we just have one day, we don't complain, we just try to find solutions."

Championship life is anything but perfect. It is why we love it.