Leeds United are making strides towards the top of the Championship but they now need to find consistency in results
A corner has been turned at Leeds United over the last few weeks, it’s fair to say. After a testing few months, Whites supporters are rightly starting to look up and as Daniel Farke’s side find their rhythm, optimism is beginning to flow freely through Elland Road for the first real time since the days of Marcelo Bielsa.
No one is getting ahead of themselves and with the history Leeds have in the second tier, it’s clear that talk of promotion would be extremely premature at this point in the season. But it’s obvious that Leeds are on the right track under Farke and the trajectory the club find themselves on is nothing short of promising as they approach the autumn months.
You won’t find many Leeds fans mourning the passing of summer right now, though, in fact, it’s fair to say the month of August was as gruelling off the pitch as it was on it. Transfer talk dominated the agenda in West Yorkshire with Leeds battling hard to keep their squad intact.
With some players refusing to play and others already out the door, Farke failed to name a full bench on two occasions in the Championship, painting an alarming picture of a club being held in a stranglehold of uncertainty. The results didn’t come, then, with the loss to Birmingham City being a distinct low point of the campaign so far.
Few will spend much time looking back at the draws against Cardiff City and West Bromwich Albion or, indeed, Leeds’ short and not particularly sweet Carabao Cup campaign, as a depleted Whites squad coughed and spluttered into life. To his credit, though, Farke was always confident that things would start to turn around once the club had made the necessary additions and he wasn’t wrong.
In the month that has passed since the closure of the transfer window, Leeds have scored six goals without reply and picked up eight points to climb into the Championship’s top six. Millwall and Watford have been dispatched in ruthless and clinical fashion, while they had to display spirit in the face of adversity to dig out a 0-0 draw with 10-men at Hull City.
It could be said that the difficulties of August, and the criticism that came with it, has created something of a siege mentality within the gates of Thorp Arch and perhaps it has to some extent. But, it’s obvious that this new look Leeds squad is settling in with Farke’s message hitting home in every training ground session and nothing quite proved that like Saturday’s dominant showing against Watford.
Leeds cruised to victory in the end, making one of the Championship’s more expensively assembled outfits look hopelessly out of their depth. Contrast that performance with those over the first two or three weeks of the campaign and the strides forward Leeds have made in such a small amount of time look plentiful.
The Whites were hardly troubled at the back as they claimed their fourth straight clean sheet, while their piercing attack play was a joy to behold at times, slicing Watford open at will, particularly in the second half. The improvement in individuals is clear, too, with the turnaround in Georginio Rutter being perhaps the perfect symbol for what Farke has achieved at Elland Road. Illan Meslier, as well, who is already looks like he has fully recovered from his loss of form and confidence at the back end of the season, while Pascal Struijk looks like a new man.
What’s frightening is that Saturday’s performance wasn’t perfect, far from it, suggesting Leeds have plenty more to give and probably the most important thing they need to build on right now is consistency. Despite the progress they’ve made and the promising position (6th) they find themselves sitting in at present, the Whites still haven’t strung two results together.
Their three league wins have all been followed by frustrating draws, and that’s a trend they’ll be desperate to buck this weekend as they travel to face a Southampton side who have lost their last four fixtures in the second tier. Consistency seems to be the only difference between Leeds and the runaway leaders in the Championship right now.
Leicester City and Ipswich Town have both won seven of their opening eight league games to collect 21 points, eight more than Leeds’ total of 13, while Preston North End have won six and drawn two to amass 20 points. There’s already a five-point gap between third place Preston and fourth place Hull City and at present the top three are showing no signs of slowing.
