Enjoy yourself — Square Ball 13/2/25

Metal wheel base

Written by: Chris McMenamy

This is fun, right? Playing incredibly well and winning with almost emotionless brutality. It’s fun and in no way scary, right? Right?!

I’m not sure how to behave right now. Leeds United are the best team in the Championship. They deserve to go up. They should go up. They probably will go up. The only thing stopping Leeds from promotion is Leeds, and I think that’s the scary part.

It wasn’t like this in 2020. We were riddled with the trauma of losing to Derby so spectacularly in the previous season’s play-offs. In hindsight, we believed in Marcelo Bielsa but perhaps failed to be convinced by Leeds United as an entity. It wasn’t unreasonable to suggest that Leeds being promoted to the Premier League was still a ridiculous thought even as the bookies, opposing managers, and pundits unanimously declared Bielsa’s team as promotion worthy.

Bielsa’s Leeds had a fragility about it that was little to do with the players or manager and mostly to do with the club’s recent history and the sense of deprivation among a fanbase who hadn’t seen elite football in almost two decades. With Bielsa, it was as if we had stumbled upon this incredibly beautiful thing and didn’t know how to fully understand it, so everyone was scared it might break at any point. As Daniel Farke’s Leeds team smashed their way past Watford at Vicarage Road on Tuesday night, I found myself enjoying the performance in the way an entitled Roman emperor might have revelled at the sight of a lion being let loose in the Colosseum.

There is an undoubtedly different air around this Leeds team. Comparing Farke’s team against Bielsa’s will never make any sense given the wildly different and specific set of circumstances under which each was built. And I’m not going to do it. Instead, I think it’s best to just sit back and enjoy what we have right now, which is a side in imperious form with a series of challenges ahead that, should they overcome them, might lead us to the big ol’ party we’ve been itching to throw.

Most sane individuals outside of Leeds have been saying since the start of the season that Leeds will go up and that they have the best team in the Championship. There was a certain reluctance to really embrace that from the get-go, and that feeling wasn’t helped by a rocky start to the season, drawing 3-3 at home to newly-promoted Portsmouth and selling one key player too many in Georgi Rutter.

Farke’s first season was marred by the rebuild required when he arrived and the subsequent slow start to the 2023/24 season. Stumbling out of the blocks didn’t feel like an option this year, but time has proven that Leeds needed a moment to compose themselves after losing four starting players over the summer.

I bought an office chair a while back with a plastic wheel base. It was cheap and I soon found out why. Two wheels broke off and I ended up sitting at an angle — and before you ask, I have checked the maximum weight requirements. Rather than throw the chair in the bin, I bought a metal wheel base, one fit for the purpose of supporting an adult human, and I haven’t looked back. That inane anecdote is what I’m calling a metaphor for Leeds’ summer transfer activity, recruiting players of substance and learning from last season’s mistakes.

Leeds’ form since losing at Blackburn at the end of November indicates that Farke’s side have turned a corner and found their rhythm after another summer of turnover. They’ve racked up ten wins and four draws, two of which can be chalked up to individual errors against Blackburn and Hull. Leeds haven’t conceded a league goal since Illan Meslier’s off day in East Yorkshire. He’s picked up another six clean sheets since then and justified Farke’s faith in him.

The winter transfer window closed without any incomings, much to the bemusement of many, myself included. Farke spent the month of January talking about which positions he’d like to strengthen and Leeds approached Southampton about Cameron Archer, but will ultimately approach the final third of the season as they were. If they continue playing as they are and avoid any attacking injuries, then it’s fair to say that their inaction will be vindicated. Farke’s faith in his players is such that he hasn’t felt the need to comment on Leeds’ transfer window in the press conferences since it closed.

Leeds’ last three league games have convinced me that it’s time to just sit back and enjoy the ride. The run Leeds put together at this point last season feels dissimilar to the way they’re playing right now. There was an air of desperation about it, clawing back the points gap from two rivals who’d set unattainable targets for Leeds to reach. This time around, Leeds look more emphatic, assured, and collectively dangerous. Opposing teams are presented with an almost impossible task when deciding how to approach this Leeds team. If you sit deep and try to frustrate, there’s still a decent chance that Leeds will break you down. But if you attack, they’ll punish you on the counter. Your only hope is that Leeds aren’t firing on all cylinders because as Rob wrote after the win at Vicarage Road:

When Leeds are on it, every other team in the league is fucked.

All statistics and trends suggest that we’ll be a Premier League team next season. I’m ready to embrace these final fourteen games, starting with Sunderland on Monday night, in the hope of seeing a Leeds team swashbuckle their way back to the top flight in what might actually be a coronation, rather than nail-biting promotion battle. And yes, I’m fighting against the Leedsy devil on my shoulder telling me to remember ten-man Wigan as I type these words.

13/2/25 9:47