Bristol City 0-1 Leeds United: The task

In the press conference after Leeds United beat Bristol City on Friday night, The Athletic’s (and our) Phil Hay was reflecting aloud to Daniel Farke, who had just been talking about how his newly signed right-back Connor Roberts could be the perfect addition to his squad. “To be fair to Archie Gray, for his performance tonight, he’s not making it easy for you to bring Connor in quickly,” said Phil.

“That’s fine,” replied Farke, with a shrug. “That’s fine.” Next question.

Somehow, amid the fraught chaos stirred up by the closure of January’s transfer window and a pressurised Friday night trip to the banks of the River Avon, after an irritating draw in the cup, Daniel Farke made last week one of the most placid yet of what is becoming a serene tenure. The club signed the right-back he wanted, delighting not just Farke but Connor Roberts himself and his three Welsh x Leeds teammates. Away in Bristol, Leeds did not falter as they had on their travels over Christmas. The team went 2nd in the league, if only briefly, while achieving the more durable aim of returning to earning two points per game on average. Wilf Gnonto scored the winning goal and, with that and the man of the match award, unlocked some of the glee that has eluded him for a year. Before the game, Farke had said, “At the moment we are playing the best season in the history of this club in the Championship,” adding, “No one really speaks about it, but we are, I think, two points ahead of the legendary title winners of 2019/20.” By the end of the weekend, every meme account on social media was speaking about exactly that. 

That sort of publicity could increase the pressure on a team, but Farke has judged his moment. Week by week his calmness has been making more sense, and now it’s February and Ipswich are a point behind Leeds, while Southampton, in 2nd, are only a point ahead. Games in hand distort that, but Farke’s description of January – “win, win, win, win” – supports the idea that whatever Leicester, Southampton or Ipswich do now, Leeds can bring their light out from under its bushel and declare themselves involved, ready to be contended with.

It’s a year since Leeds sacked Jesse Marsch and a good time, since Farke brought it up last week, to assess the importance of vibes to what Leeds United are doing now. While it was not a direct rebuke, Farke’s attitude to the January transfer window was the opposite of that which, last year, brought us five months of Weston McKennie. 

“Sometimes unity and spirit and togetherness is more important than just individual quality in the squad,” said Farke, “and for that we won’t bring a player in who thinks, okay, he’s desperate to play, he comes in, and then he ruins the spirit and the togetherness.” Exhibit A is McKennie, talking to 8by8 magazine recently about Leeds fans who felt let down by his time at Elland Road: “At the end of the day, when I get older and it’s my time to go, how many of those people are going to be there with me?” Exhibit B is Connor Roberts. “Since I started playing first-team football and played here a few times, and playing against Leeds, and grasped how big the club is, I’ve always said to my representatives, my family and my friends, it would be class to play for Leeds. And luckily today we sit here, and I get to put on that white shirt and play.”

If Archie Gray lets him. And if he doesn’t, that’s fine. “I feel like I’m at the point in my career now where I can contribute, whether that’s on the pitch or in the dressing room, at training, things like that,” said Roberts. “I’ve got experience of all kinds of Championship seasons, really. It’s all about just bringing it together, staying together as a group, and whether that’s me playing every single game or only a few, hopefully we’re all just happy at the end of the season.”

That’s fine. That’s what Farke said he was aiming for in this window, and what he has been building across the season, out of raw materials in which he’s found vibes few fans were feeling at the end of last season. The squad in summer was rank. The squad now is a puzzle, but every answer feels like a good answer. In midfield, Kamara, Ampadu, Gruev or Gray? Any of them will be fine. Bamford or Piroe up front? Doesn’t matter too much. Pick your full-backs out of Gray and Roberts, Firpo and Byram, and you should get decent results however you choose. At centre-back, with Rodon always there, do you pick Ampadu, Cooper, Struijk when he’s fit? Yes to all three. Charlie Cresswell, significantly, has been made to see the sense of continuing as one of the answers. See, too, Wilf ‘want-away’ Gnonto, apparently wanting away no more. 

That this is working out as well as it is feels a lot to do with Farke’s request that he be allowed to manage the squad and not just coach it. I’m wary of underrating Farke’s coaching when I watch teams like Bristol City: the Sky Sports commentary repeatedly emphasised that their boss, Liam Manning, is a Premier League coach in waiting, but didn’t try to account for his team’s inability to pass the ball at the back without either getting tackled by Crysencio Summerville or, if that was too much trouble, just giving the ball to him. It feels like faint praise but, compared to the teams we’re facing, Farke is doing a good job simply by ensuring Leeds can play his way without fucking it up every two minutes.

But there’s nothing inherently revolutionary about the way Leeds are playing under Farke, which perhaps makes it hard to believe that this team are out-pointsing Marcelo Bielsa’s champions. That’s not a judgement on either of them, more a reminder that, when Bielsa arrived in June 2018, his appointment was a bigger gamble than we now remember. Farke, as he likes to remind everyone, has won this division twice before – once when Bielsa was in it – and his demeanour all season has been of someone who knows what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. He’s a safe pair of hands, whereas Bielsa’s always had the thrilling myth of grenade about them. It’s why, perversely, even with a higher points total, it feels unlikely that a title with Farke will mean murals and tearful tributes. Some of us happened to like the jeopardy. I still think the Derby play-off second leg is among the best games I’ve ever been to.

What Farke has in common with Bielsa is that his results are being achieved through trust. “I wouldn’t be concerned at all if we just go with these lads,” and didn’t sign anyone in January, he said last week, “because at the moment, when you have a pretty tight group, you have also lots of spirit and unity and togetherness, because each and every player is needed at the moment, each and every player has a task.” While Jesse Marsch was on the phone last year to McKennie and Max Wöber, pleading with them to come to Leeds and ‘help’, Farke projects confidence that in Ethan Ampadu he has what Bielsa had in Luke Ayling – “who can solve every problem” – and that he would prefer to play Joe Rodon as a no.10 than try to bring new creativity out of a new signing who might be a dickhead. In Farke’s estimation, Rodon is more likely to do a good job up front, because Rodon has proven he is signed up to do anything. Every player is needed, and every player has a task, and somehow, out from under the self-absorption of last season’s Marsch-inspired focus on self-growth as the side disintegrated around him, Farke has repaired the vibes by embodying the stresslessness Marsch yearned for, and trusting, whatever else might be going on in this division, in these lads and their ability to earn two points per game.

Victory in Bristol was achieved by transporting the calm, unbeaten Leeds of Elland Road to the south-west for an away win that felt as dominant as home. The current Leeds line-up feels like the best version yet, secure at the back, dominating possession, seizing on counters and scoring not quite early, here, but soon enough to get on the right side of pressure. Pat Bamford is playing an important role by, basically, staying out of the way and taking defenders with him, so Gnonto, Rutter and Summerville can play between his security up top and Kamara and Gruev’s security behind. It’d be nice and maybe more fun if the midfielders were popping a few more goals in but Farke doesn’t seem to mind, he just wishes his young forwards had a bit more maturity and could finish chances more easily. There were the usual fluffs here, mainly from Summerville, who should have done better when he broke through on goal from a Bristol City corner, and whose calmness wasn’t rewarded later when a standard Summerville roll of the ball inside the post was saved by City’s keeper. Things have not quite been coming off for Summerville in the last couple of games, but he’s been persisting undimmed, an example to Gnonto, who turned his broken body language on the bench after being taken off against Plymouth last week into joyful arm-flinging when he seized on a loose ball, zipped around a pair of players, and shot past an obliging goalie.

Bristol City had a bit of trying for an equaliser, but Illan Meslier made a good save and Joe Rodon made a lot of good headers, so there wasn’t much to worry about. When your only concern is not scoring more, or not seeing more excitement, you’re worrying about the right things. Coming into this game, the Robins were the middest of midtable teams, 13th with a goal difference of zero, but midtable away has brought some of the Peacocks’ direst displays so far. Farke, throughout, has looked thoroughly unbothered, pointing to incidents like the penalty Leeds weren’t given for a foul on Rutter in Bristol and concentrating on a slow climb towards a perfect unity and pressure on the top two. If last week was the right time to mention the “best season in the history of this club in the Championship,” then Friday night was the right time to come up with three points away. The season, as it goes on, feels more and more like time spent waiting for Farke to be proved right. Maybe that’ll be worth a mural in the end. ★彡

(Originally published at The Square Ball)