Coventry City 2-1 Leeds United: Plan A worked, so what now?

I wonder if there is a plan for this. Daniel Farke didn’t expect Leeds United to go unbeaten all year until the end of the season – although it would have been nice – so ‘lose to someone’ must have been on the risk list somewhere. A bit below ‘lose rhythm after the international break’, perhaps, and a bit above ‘end up in the play-offs’.

Farke has shown a calm demeanour from the start, as if nothing can surprise him, so it’s likely that, yes, there is a plan after losing to Coventry. I don’t imagine it’s complicated. The next game is Sunderland at home on Tuesday night, when another record – unbeaten at home – will be in play, along with Elland Road’s fragile grasp on optimism. Last week, with the closing stages of the season officially declared, Farke said that being able to look at the table doesn’t actually change anything anyway. It’s too late for any radical new tactics, and besides, like Marcelo Bielsa before him, he doesn’t want the players to start doubting the methods that have been working all season, or to think that their manager doubts them. 

Leeds will probably just go again on Tuesday, then, and the rest will be psychological. “I wanted (the players) to be a bit self-critical,” after the game, Farke said. “I still got the feeling we had a bit more to give, especially in the first half or in the first sixty minutes, and for that I also wanted them to be a bit disappointed. Also to allow ourselves to suffer a bit. I think after a loss you should stay a bit humble and also a bit self-critical.” The specifics of his criticism boiled down to, basically, not looking up for the scrap. “From the statistics this was a really good away game, I have to say, but we didn’t win the decisive duels … sometimes it happens that when you have such a comfortable start, you lose a bit the aggressiveness, the greediness in the duels, and I got the feeling this was a bit the case, especially in the first half.”

That’s about how it looked. Archie Gray was into Coventry’s box, from right-back, after a minute, shooting wide. In the fifth minute Junior Firpo was onto Georginio Rutter’s pass, pulling back and nearly forcing an own goal and/or a chance for Pat Bamford. A minute after that, Dan James was in the box, ready to cross low, after Crysencio Summerville dribbled across the pitch to set him up. It looked good and felt good and only a matter of time before Leeds scored and won. Inevitably, then, Coventry scored and won, their first from a corner, helped when nobody from Leeds was clearing or marking; the second from a Leeds free-kick at the start of the second half that became a chance at Coventry’s back post but, when it was cleared and City countered, became a goal at United’s back post. 

Between Coventry’s tenth minute opener and Joel Piroe and Mateo Joseph’s 65th minute introduction Leeds couldn’t regain the impetus they’d started with, even when Archie Gray was pushed into Glen Kamara’s midfield place at half-time. On the half hour Bamford went for a low cross with the wrong foot, and that was his eighth touch, including the kick-off. He’d still been more involved than Dan James, as the theme of the first half was of Ethan Ampadu passing to Kamara and Kamara passing it back, or vice versa, and each looking at the forward players and imploring them to find some space for a pass. Coventry weren’t allowing that, and Ilia Gruev, brought back in hopes of reprising his pre-break dictation, couldn’t get on the ball.

Joseph, in particular, changed things. Suddenly Leeds had a forward player willing to shake things up. All afternoon passes had gone to the middle, where Bamford and Rutter couldn’t use them in a crowd of sky blue shirts. But after ten minutes on the pitch, Joseph was off on a run to the left, out of the rut, from where he gave the ball to Rutter in the box. He would not be toppled, and Piroe jabbed home a rebounding ball for 2-1. Wilf Gnonto worried the left-back after he joined in the last few minutes and, over the last half hour, Leeds were back to something like normal, with all the possession, attacking relentlessly, trying maybe too hard to carve out complicated chances instead of simple ones. 

All this culminated in a chance to equalise in the 92nd minute. A free-kick crossed to the edge of the penalty area was clipped through by Joseph, and everything you need to know about his youthful enthusiasm can be learned by looking at him, before Piroe has even controlled the pass, with his hands in the air, celebrating the goal Leeds were about to score. And everything Mateo Joseph has to learn about football is there in Piroe’s finish, a soft scuff that rolled the ball against the goalie’s leg and away. 

In the end that’s the margin by which Leeds are 3rd instead of 2nd; add Bamford’s first half chance and that’s why Leeds aren’t top. Which might be unfair on those players, but it’s unavoidable. Leeds did not play well, but they did not play unusually badly. The team still found a way, as it has all year without regard to performance, to create enough chances for a result. Piroe took one, but the condition of a striker is that you must always do more. After the miss, Joseph was straight over to console him, but Piroe brushed him aside as if to say, kid, you’ll get used to this feeling one day. 

The bigger picture about the margins at the top, though, is nothing to do with Bamford or Piroe. In 2019, Daniel Farke got Norwich City promoted as champions with 27 wins. In 2021 they won the title again with 29 wins, but 27 were enough for Watford to be promoted in 2nd. Back in summer, when he was wondering how to make the best of Leo Hjelde and Ian Poveda, Farke was thinking that 26 wins and 75 goals would get Leeds up. His achievement has been to tick both those targets by the first week of April, with six games left. 

Farke’s problem now is that, having reached his objective, he’s down to five games left and still needs to take Leeds United further. Further than 26 wins, further than 76 goals, further than nine wins in a row, further than fifteen games unbeaten. His squad, since the March internationals, has looked weary and depleted, right when they have to give more. That makes for a hard message ahead of a tough month: with no time to the next game, with no time for big changes, the first option is for the players simply to dig in and do the business. 

There are other options, but they come with risk. If the key to the rest of the season is psychological, it might be time for Farke to start selecting his side based on confidence and enthusiasm. Mateo Joseph is the one player who came home from the international break elated, and his exuberance is a pattern breaker whenever Leeds get stuck. Maybe it could help the other players to have a striker on the pitch with them who believes they’re going to score, more than they believe in themselves? At the other end, Connor Roberts came to Leeds to get involved in exactly what is happening now: a scrap, for his second promotion. After the first minute at Coventry, Gray barely repeated his appearance in the opposition box, but in the second half Roberts was rarely out of it. Besides, the more Welsh players the better, so far, and with their Euro 2024 dream over, the Swansea contingent can give everything to this month that they might have kept for summer. 

For 41 games Daniel Farke has seemed conservative, trusting his knowhow, calmly pursuing his targets. He has been right to. Leeds have been excellent. A defeat here or a sub-par performance there shouldn’t detract from the overall fact that Leeds already have a promotion-worthy tally of wins and points on the board and there are still five games to go. But everything about this season hinges on whether Leeds go up or not. Can – should – Farke lower his cautious guard now, and freshen his weary team with the players who look brave, willing, excited to play? ⭑彡