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The only shame about Neil Kilkenny pinging the ball into the top corner at Elland Road and celebrating by blowing kisses towards Ken Bates in the directors’ box was that he did it while wearing a Bristol City kit rather than a Leeds United shirt. Daniel Farke will need more than a victory against Chelsea to ensure he’s still employed as Leeds manager come the New Year, but as he strolled past the West Stand after saluting the other three sides of an enraptured Elland Road at full-time on Wednesday night, I hope he at least afforded himself a smug smirk of satisfaction.
The writing was not just on the wall for Farke heading into the visit of Chelsea, but all over the national press. A few hours prior to kick-off, the BBC and Sky Sports built on Monday’s story in The Guardian that Farke had two games to save his job by suggesting he might not even get that long. Was it all hot air, or was it a sign that Paraag Marathe — having flown over the Atlantic earlier than expected this week — had finally identified a replacement?
It doesn’t matter right now, because Leeds United’s players delivered for their manager. They always have done — if not necessarily in execution then always in effort. It’s how they scored more goals and won more games in Farke’s first campaign than in any Leeds season for fifteen years, then bounced back from the disappointment of Wembley by scoring even more goals and winning more games the following year, right up until the 91st minute of what was ultimately a 92-match slog for the title even though they would have been more than justified to put their feet up with promotion secured. While there had been legitimate questions about Leeds’ ability on and off the pitch over their first thirteen games since returning to the Premier League, there’s never been any doubt they’ve been leaving it all out there.
The best thing I can say about Wednesday night is that I was still recovering on Thursday morning. I woke up with a sore head and no idea why I had bruises on my arms and legs, still feeling on top of the world, because no matter how rough I felt, I knew Chelsea’s players had woken up feeling far worse. As their bald fraud Enzo Maresca said of their Brazilian wonderkid Estêvão, who was so fed up of chasing after Gabi Gudmundsson he had to be subbed off at half-time having resorted to petulant kicks: “I think the feeling with Estêvão was, you know, a little bit ‘welcome to Leeds.’” Now fuck off, thank you.
Picking up straight from where they left off in the spirited comeback at Man City, Leeds devoured Chelsea from the opening whistle. Within the first ninety seconds, Jayden Bogle was sprinting at a panicked Marc Cucurella and forcing a throw-in deep in Chelsea’s half, roaring at the South Stand to make sure the atmosphere in the stands matched the intensity on the pitch. Ever since standing a few feet away from Cucurella as he bottled out of a fifty-fifty with Mat Klich while playing for Brighton at Elland Road, I’ve been convinced he’s a soft little shithouse, and the expression on his face as he asked goalkeeper Robert Sanchez why he’d given him the ball belied a man with churning guts and quivering legs.
Cucurella’s opening minutes were a microcosm of what the rest of his teammates were to expect for the rest of the night. Seconds later he was rooted to the floor as Bogle beat him in the air, then beat him to the ball a second time. Before he’d had the chance to take another breath, he was chasing after Dominic Calvert-Lewin and asking for an offside flag to bail him out as he was outmuscled to the byline and Calvert-Lewin teed up Ao Tanaka to spoon a shot into the stand.
With Bogle on the right and Gudmundsson on the left freed up by the defensive solidity of Leeds’ new 3-5-2 formation, United were being driven forward by two Duracell bunnies on either flank with a restlessness not seen at Elland Road since Gjanni Alioski was shaking the tunnel to rid himself of any excess energy. Gudmundsson’s cross skimmed off the head of Calvert-Lewin, allowing Chelsea captain Enzo Fernandez to clear for another corner with a scowl that never left his face until he was in the safety of a bus back to West London.
It wasn’t pretty, but unlike recent weeks Leeds kept peppering the opposition’s penalty area with everything at their disposal — long balls from Lucas Perri, long throws from Ethan Ampadu, long shots from Anton Stach. They weren’t going to stop until Chelsea cracked. It only took five minutes. Stach whipped in a corner from the left and Jaka Bijol crashed in a brute of a header at the near post to crown a start that felt too good to be true and lit the touchpaper for an Elland Road firecracker. Meanwhile, somewhere in the padded seats, Robbie Evans was frantically opening Microsoft Excel to show Marathe that ‘Big Lads FC’ was his idea after all. I sincerely hope Farke went full Kilkenny and blew them a kiss from the dugout.
In the neighbouring technical area, Maresca was begging his players to calm down, but Leeds weren’t allowing them time to think. Wherever they went, white shirts were snapping at their heels, led by Ampadu relishing the chance to get stuck into his former employers in what was quite possibly his best performance for Leeds. Another Stach corner gave Pascal Struijk a chance he should have done better with, heading scruffily wide; Calvert-Lewin beat Sanchez to the ball but couldn’t pick out a teammate with a cross. When Leeds did have to defend, Bijol, Struijk and Joe Rodon relished scrapping for the ball and covering each other’s backs as their teammates in front of them fed off every nervous Chelsea touch or misplaced pass. Rodon was making his 100th consecutive league appearance, becoming the first Leeds outfield player to do so since Norman Hunter sixty years ago, and I’m certain Norman would have loved every second.
The only worry was whether Leeds could hold their own nerve, having spent much of the season ruining their own good work with lapses of concentration. Instead, they went one better. Estêvão was bullied off the ball by Struijk for a throw-in and Lukas Nmecha made a nuisance of himself to get it to Bogle, who cleverly teed up Tanaka on the edge of the box. I’d been moaning about Tanaka’s lame attempts on goal throughout the first half, only for him to pick out the bottom corner with as pure a strike as his first goal in the Premier League deserved, a moment he savoured by shutting his eyes in front of the South Stand as if wanting to check he wasn’t going to open them and discover it was a dream. His old primary school teacher, who’d travelled from Japan to Beeston to watch his former pupil, could’ve been forgiven for doing the same.
In a strange way, the most encouraging part of the night was the fact Chelsea scored early into the second half, Jamie Gittens (no, me neither) skipping past Bogle and crossing for sub Pedro Neto to score at the back post. Leeds’ resolve was tested but, unlike recent defeats, they refused to wilt under the pressure and rose to the challenge. Aided by a rejuvenated Stach, Nmecha and Calvert-Lewin dovetailed in dragging Leeds upfield, while at the back Rodon and Struijk remained bold enough to keep pressing high up the pitch when required.
Chelsea turned to Cole Palmer from the bench, who squandered a chance to equalise, but Leeds kept forcing chances of their own. Sanchez saved at the start of the half from Nmecha, who also had a goal ruled out for offside in the build up. They were helped by Farke making changes before his usual seventy-minute mark, introducing Ilia Gruev and Noah Okafor so energy levels didn’t dip. Those subs helped provide the telling moment, as Okafor hared after Chelsea’s defence, forcing mistakes out of Tosin Adarabioyo and Sanchez to nudge the ball free and gift Calvert-Lewin a tap in that meant the final twenty minutes were played against the backdrop of a party in LS11. If Rodon did Norman Hunter’s old number 6 shirt proud, Ampadu patrolled midfield in the number 4 with the cantankerous class of David Batty, taking every opportunity to wind up Fernandez, ending the game pulling faces at Chelsea’s £106m World Cup-winning captain, who looked like he wanted to cry.
Whether this will prove a transformative result for the season remains to be seen, but it confirmed what the second half at City hinted — by hook or by crook, Farke has a blueprint that players, fans and maybe even those in the directors’ box can get behind. That’s irrelevant right now anyway, because nights like those don’t come around often, and are the entire reason we keep coming back for more. As I waited for my train home savouring a final pint, I eavesdropped on a couple of elderly Chelsea fans drowning their sorrows and bemoaning their trip up north. “They were too quick for us, too physical for us, and too good for us.” That’s not the Leeds United I fell in love with, but it’s a Leeds United I could fall for. ⬢
