Nottingham Forest 3-1 Leeds United: Route zero — Square Ball 11/11/25

Getting worse

Written by: Rob Conlon

The last time I visited the City Ground before Sunday was 2017. Thomas Christiansen was in charge of Leeds. Gjanni Alioski scored a banger in a 2-0 win. And the away end reclaimed the chant that had soundtracked the previous season’s collapse under Garry Monk. “Leeds are falling apart again.” Fast forward eight years, and I was back in almost exactly the same spot in the corner of the stadium, with Leeds fans singing exactly the same song, only this time it had been started by the home supporters.

The last time Leeds United visited the City Ground, Jesse Marsch was sacked. I suspect the 49ers will not be quite so swift with a decision on Daniel Farke’s future. Partly because Leeds are still on the point per game average that has been the stated aim of the season. Partly because everything they have done during their time at the club — from taking it over, to hiring managers, to signing (or not signing) players — suggests they’re incapable of getting anything done quickly. But this was the afternoon in which the hypothetical sacking of Farke definitively switched from a case of not ‘if’ but ‘when’.

Not that losing at Nottingham Forest is anything new for Leeds. Ever since that victory under Christiansen, United have been beaten on their four visits to the banks of the River Trent, including the two Championship seasons under Marcelo Bielsa. After undoubtedly being shafted in the summer transfer window, Farke might ask why things would be any different this time around, but the unfortunate truth is his Leeds team are getting worse and any semblance of tactical plan is evaporating in front of our eyes. Which might explain why I’m thinking about Thomas Christiansen and Jesse Marsch in the first place.

There are questions about whether that plan was ever going to work enough over 38 Premier League games anyway. After Robbie Evans spent six months crunching the numbers to come up with the idea, ‘sign some tall blokes,’ Leeds have spent the last two away games tortuously passing the ball around the edge of their own penalty area between players who don’t want it, marooned in their own half of the pitch while inviting pressure from the opposition. After two years of preparation, accumulating 190 points in the Championship, this is where it’s led us: route zero football.

During one moment in the first half, Ethan Ampadu had to ask Joe Rodon not to chin Anton Stach for chipping him a hospital pass because Stach couldn’t figure out how to play the ball forward himself. Stach has spent the opening weeks of the season telling the German media about his ambition to be recalled to the national team despite the evidence suggesting he’s wilting under the intensity of the Premier League like the second coming of Marc Roca with a better social media team.

Brenden Aaronson did lots of good work winning possession, only to look up and realise there was nobody in front of him to pass to, by which point he had lost it again. Instead, Leeds’ best hope was asking Noah Okafor or Gabi Gudmundsson to break from their own half and pray the Forest defenders would move out of the way as they ran, head down, towards the goal at the other end of the pitch. The first Leeds ‘highlight’ on LUTV is Okafor failing to beat his full-back and losing the ball. So is the second.

Yet for the briefest of moments Leeds stumbled upon a plan that might be the best approach to staying up. Sean Longstaff won a header in midfield. Okafor won the second ball. With space on the edge of the box and teammates around him, Aaronson fed Lukas Nmecha, who found the bottom corner with a genuine high-quality finish. Leeds were in front and it felt too good to be true.

That’s because it was. I often say that all you can ask for from an away trip is a Leeds goal and a moment to celebrate. I don’t think it’s greedy to ask for the moment of joy to last longer than two minutes. Ampadu was pitifully weak in stopping a cross. Lucas Perri flapped at the ball. The defence stood and watched Ibrahim Sangare tuck in the rebound.

For all we can bemoan the lack of quality in attack, the gradual breakdown of the defence is what’s going to get Farke sacked. Within the opening ninety seconds, Morgan Gibbs-White — Forest’s best and most obviously talented player — found the space between the midfield and defence that he craves and forced a save from Perri. When Leeds are having to work so hard to get a foothold in games, they simply can’t keep making it so easy for the opposition.

Even so, it was still 1-1 at half-time. The chat at the break was what might change and we all settled on the same answer: nothing. We all predicted that Farke would wait until Forest scored a second before bringing on Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Joel Piroe for two names picked out of a hat, and that’s exactly what transpired. We aren’t clairvoyants. It’s just what happens, and what happened again.

Leeds had more of a grip of the game at the start of the second half, prompting the away end to start revving up, only for Sean Dyche to make a triple change on the hour, shifting the momentum as Farke dithered until Gibbs-White ambled in between Jaka Bijol, Ampadu and Rodon to head Forest in front. Again, this is a recurring problem, and I can’t help but wonder if Leeds are so bad at tracking midfield runners because they don’t have anyone able to replicate the same thing in training. Are Rodon and Bijol heading away cross after cross at Thorp Arch while Stach, Longstaff and Ampadu are standing on the halfway line with Calvert-Lewin or Nmecha begging them to join in?

Whatever Farke said after the game was going to piss people off, but his explanation of waiting until the 74th minute to bring on Calvert-Lewin, Piroe and Dan James just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny:

“Overall our set-up was also working in our favour. The feeling was the longer it’s perhaps a draw or we’re in the lead, the pressure is on Nottingham. We had a point gap, they’re at home against a side just promoted and we felt we’d get even more counter-attacks. They were relatively open in the first half and we could explore this a bit more. But if they go in the lead and sit back more and you have to equalise it’s clear we go for risks with two strikers on the pitch. There was no chance to bring Dominic Calvert-Lewin on earlier, he was just ready for thirty minutes.”

If he was ready for thirty minutes, then why did he only play sixteen, particularly when Nmecha went down injured with around half an hour of the game left? And what about Piroe and James, or anyone else for that matter? Fifteen minutes and one goal passed between Dyche’s changes and Farke’s, and so did Leeds’ best chance of getting a result.

That was still easier to stomach then Jack Harrison being brought on at left-back and conceding a late penalty that Elliott Anderson converted as he was beaten by Omari Hutchinson three times in one dribble, leaving him to get booed by the Leeds end for the remaining few minutes. If you think this is all getting very Jesse Marsch then you’re right. See Southampton 2-2 Leeds, August 2022, when Marsch spent all week talking about the need to make changes on a hot day then waited until the 84th minute, ending the game with Harrison at left-back, a decision that cost Leeds a late equaliser and two crucial points against a relegation rival.

Farke is at least right about one thing. Leeds fans are emotional. And justifiably so. Not least when an away end wants the manager to front up only to spot him wandering around the back of a group of players sheepishly applauding supporters.

Ever since finishing 9th in 2021, we’ve been promised a brighter future that never comes because of owners who are too distracted to focus enough on the present. Leeds are still recovering from Andrea Radrizzani’s decision that summer four years ago to listen to Bielsa telling him, “Change me or change the players,” only to do neither. If the 49ers aren’t to make the same mistake, then unfortunately for Farke they can only change one of those things right now.