Chelsea 6-3 Leeds United: Well done — Square Ball 10/9/26

Words by: Chris McMenamy

All money, no arms

September 10, 2026

The Independent’s Miguel Delaney reported last week that numerous Premier League clubs are increasingly using private equity firms to finance their exponentially growing transfer spending. In other words, elite football is gorging like Bruce Bogtrotter sat in front of a chocolate cake — so it’s only right that Leeds United travelled down to the posh part of London to face Chelsea, the ground zero of grotesque spending in the modern game.

Daniel Farke made eight changes to the team that drew 1-1 at Brighton, while Chelsea rotated nine starters out, so as not to be outdone. The less fancied United took the lead in the 23rd minute when Tarik Muharemovic headed in from a tight angle after Harry Wilson’s inswinging corner evaded the Chelsea defence.

Leeds were good value for their 1-0 lead at half-time, and that was enough to prompt Xabi Alonso to introduce four of his first-team players, including attacking stars Morgan Rogers and Cole Palmer. But the billionaires were two goals behind in the 48th minute when Ethan Ampadu’s byline cross bounced off Lukas Nmecha and into the path of an unmarked Brenden Aaronson, who finished with ease.

Leeds were two goals up and cruising, despite Chelsea introducing talent worth several hundred million pounds at the break. And then The Bad Thing happened. Referee Jared Gillett continued his trend of woeful performances against Leeds by giving a remarkably soft penalty for a ‘foul’ on Pedro Neto by a perplexed Dan James. It’s just not a penalty, unless you’re the guy that the A-League made famous for calling players “mate” and being good at communication, which is apparently the bar to surpass to become a Premier League referee in the modern era.

Palmer reduced the deficit to one in the 53rd minute, and Chelsea were 4-2 up shortly after the hour mark. The home side’s abundant quality showed in a twelve-minute period that highlighted the gap between both teams. Perhaps Aaronson’s goal lulled United into a false sense of security, but it was evident that Chelsea’s half-time changes had significantly altered the complexion of this game from a tactical standpoint and Farke appeared to do nothing to combat it.

By the time he scrambled four changes of his own and ensured his coaching staff gave them the customary minutes of analysis chat, Chelsea were well on top and two goals in front. In the manager’s defence, it’s not unreasonable for Farke to expect his players to have enough street smarts about them to break the game up at 2-1 or even 2-2 and avoid losing total control. A team can stem the bleeding by killing an opponent’s momentum. An ‘injury’, a couple of tactical fouls — it’s not rocket science.

The total loss of control cannot be explained by any one thing, but momentum appeared to swing heavily to Chelsea with Gillett’s penalty decision, and United didn’t look at all capable of stopping it. “A bit of a crazy game,” said Farke. “Sometimes it happens when there is loads of changes.” It’s also a little worrying that the mea culpa never came from the manager after the worst 45 minutes of his time at the club, conceding six goals and looking wildly exposed throughout the entire second half.

Farke may not have factored in his new back-up goalkeeper Michael Zetterer’s performance being one of the more avant garde displays of shot stopping, in which the use of arms seemed to either be prohibited or at least strongly discouraged. Writing players off after one game is never fair, but it doesn’t feel absurd to suggest that it may be a good thing if we don’t see Zetterer in a Leeds shirt for a long time — at least until our FA Cup third round exit at the hands of Barnsley.

United’s capitulation was partly their own doing, but it’s hard to ignore the timing of Palmer’s illegitimate penalty awarded by Gillett, who just hasn’t ever looked up to scratch when officiating games involving Leeds. Farke reported that the referee apologised to him after the game for not giving his team a penalty later in the game after Noah Okafor appeared to be fouled with the score at 5-3.

Oh well, he apologised and that’s what’s important, right? It’s not as if Gillett is paid handsomely to get decisions like penalties correct. I’d make a joke about VAR being not so bad if it wasn’t so clear and obvious that the officials would almost certainly have looked at both the penalty decisions and agreed with the original on-field decisions.

If we don’t want to blame referees or Zetterer’s heavy arms for United’s defeat, and we’re not going to two foot the players as a whole, then who do we blame? Roman Abramovich for introducing excessive spending to the Premier League through money siphoned from the Russian people? Why not, I guess. He is to modern football what the CIA were to the crack cocaine epidemic.

It’s safer to blame a deposed oligarch than suggest that it might be better if Sean Longstaff didn’t look a yard off the pace throughout or Jaka Bijol failed to deal with an ageing Danny Welbeck’s twisting and turning in the United penalty area.

A small positive to take from this game is that, while Zetterer struggled, his fellow new pal Melvin Bard looked like a serviceable left-back on his debut. By no means a flawless performance, but there’s certainly enough in there not to feel entirely terrible about the evening.

Jean-Matteo Bahoya remains perfect in our eyes after being left on the bench as the game ran away from Leeds in the final fifteen minutes. His lightning pace must be reserved for another day, we hope coming soon against Newcastle at Elland Road.

We’ll tell ourselves that the League Cup doesn’t matter and, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t, but it sure hurts to lose to that bunch of entitled, cheating pricks. Well done, Chelsea, you money grubbing, sovereign wealth stealing, transfer rule breaking, set of pigs.