Mighty Leeds Weblog

By Stuart Rayner For an hour it was a near-perfect away performance by Leeds United. Daniel Farke did not send his side out to play the Gunners off the park, but they managed the first hour brilliantly to let hosts Arsenal have more of the ball, whilst they had the better of the chances. And they did not just sit back and hope the front men could hit the Gunners on the counter-attack. Both wing-backs got high when their team had the ball, and early in the second half it was holding midfielder Ethan Ampadu winning the ball on the edge of Arsenal's area to create a chance Ao Tanaka had saved, and their goal came from a centre-back popping up in the penalty area in opening play. But against a team of Arsenal's quality, an hour is not enough. Leeds dropped their guard to allow Riccardo Califiori to equalise, and from there the Premier League champions swamped them, and ought to have won by more than 2-1. The Whites’ unbeaten start to the Premier League season is over. ...

By Stuart Rayner Daniel Farke says Leeds United goalkeeper James Trafford has the “natural self-confidence” which will allow him to compete to be England's new No 1 goalkeeper and deal with being Britain's most expensive. Trafford's career has gone on fast forward after spending last season as Manchester City's domestic cup goalkeeper, winning the FA and League Cups, but not enough minutes to play at the World Cup. Since then he has moved to Leeds in a £45m deal, and was picked as England goalkeeper in two of the recent four Nations League games. That a home game against world and European champions Spain, England's first post-World Cup fixture, was one of Trafford's games rather than incumbent Jordan Pickford's felt significant. Pickford has always been an energetic character, but Leeds manager Farke thinks Trafford's calmer demeanour is what he needs. "He's relaxed," said the German, who predictably refused to give an opinion on...