West Ham 3-0 Leeds United: Knees up, sup it up

People often say they want their funerals to be jubilant parties, drunken celebrations of life rather than wet weeping commemorations of death. As Leeds’ very own Jake Thackray once sang in his Last Will And Testament, when I snuff it bury me quickly, then let carousals begin — so get the booze, boys.

At the London Stadium on Sunday, Leeds United put that theory to the test, rocking up to West Ham’s funeral with flip flops on their feet, ties around their heads and eyes already on the free bar at the wake. Leeds lost 3-0, West Ham were relegated. I’ll let you decide who were the real winners and losers.

For an hour or so, the Peacocks tried their best to live up to the facade of stern faces. The half-time boos from the home fans would have been much louder if only Leeds’ strikers had their boots on the right way around, Lukas Nmecha diverting James Justin’s early shot-cross off his shins and well wide from in front of goal, before slaloming his way into the penalty and providing Dominic Calvert-Lewin with the opportunity to show him how it’s done from almost exactly the same spot on the edge of the six-yard box. At least Calvert-Lewin hit the target. Unfortunately he also hit West Ham ‘keeper Mads Hermansen rather than the bottom corner.

Instead, it was largely an afternoon of apathy. Even the East End boos lacked any vigour, mirroring a match that resembled a tired training session on a sunny afternoon at the end of a long season, any tension taken out of the equation by news that Everton had let everyone down by conceding an opener across the capital at Tottenham. West Ham’s plight was summed up by the sight of their own forward duo, the rottenly overpriced pair of Pablo and Taty Castellanos signed in January to save their season, fluffing their best chances.

Even after Callum Wilson had been brought on at the break in place of Pablo, Leeds began the second half the brighter of the two teams. Within the opening minute, Brenden Aaronson was gifted space on the edge of the box only to ignore Calvert-Lewin and Jayden Bogle begging for an assist to his right and shooting tamely at Hermansen.

It was feeling like only a matter of time until Leeds scored and really kicked off the death disco as Aaronson won a dangerous free-kick well within range of goal. In true end of season Sunday League style, Leeds let the least threatening player on the pitch have a go, Aaronson hitting the wall before sending a shambolic follow-up bobbling harmlessly wide. Like every other member of the squad in a collective success of a season, Aaronson has provided some valuable contributions to Leeds staying up. He’s also ended 2025/26 by going 21 games without a goal, and enters a second successive summer as a painfully obvious option in the team who needs to be replaced by better.

But that was nothing we didn’t already know, and West Ham’s three goals in the final thirty minutes were no reason for anyone in Leeds to start soul searching. Castellanos headed in the opener from a corner as Joe Rodon failed to jump with him, followed by Daniel Farke being unable to resist one last chance to scratch the itch of some fuck around and find out substitutions, throwing on his attackers in place of any semblance of shape or structure. Within a minute of Joel Piroe and Facundo Buonanotte (yes really!) joining fellow subs Dan James and Wilf Gnonto on the pitch, Nmecha lost the ball while pleading for a free-kick and Mateus Fernandes’ pass left Pascal Struijk sprawling on the floor as Jarrod Bowen finished past Karl Darlow.

By that point all eyes were on Everton, hoping they might be able to introduce a sense of jeopardy to the afternoon. With little chance of that happening, it was left to Wilson to thunder a shot from the edge of the box into the far corner via a nick off Gnonto in stoppage time, leaving the likes of Bowen, Fernandes and Crysencio Summerville to wave goodbye to the sinking ship as — in a flashback to Leeds’ last relegation — the home fans applauded some players while simultaneously telling others to fuck off.

The misery of West Ham didn’t stop a corner of Leeds’ fanbase indulging in a final bout of self-loathing in the sunshine. ‘Unacceptable’ quickly became the buzzword on social media at full-time. I’m not really sure where the concept of acceptance comes into football fandom. We certainly put up with a lot worse as supporters, and there’s not a great deal we can do about the black and white of a result. Buying a ticket for a game of football is like buying a ticket for the lottery, and wanting your money back after a meaningless defeat at the end of a successful season is like wanting a refund after ‘only’ winning enough to pay off your mortgage on the Euromillions. Final day spite wins at the likes of Watford and QPR in the past might have been much funnier, but they didn’t make the campaigns preceding them feel any more satisfying.

After all, West Ham’s relegation was a ‘here’s what you could have won’ example for any supporters — or, dare I say it, directors — who might have fancied replacing Farke with Nuno after the latter was sacked by Notts Forest at the start of the season. He plays a back three! He knows how to get results! And he’s also ostracised players and coaches while lumbering the club with Jorge Mendes deadwood, leaving a squad of talentless egos missing the previous coach they got fired, Graham Potter, who they now wistfully remember for preparing the team better for all the games they were losing.

Reaching fifty points would have been nice for Leeds, albeit that would have left us three points behind European qualification, ruminating on how some costly late concessions over the course of the campaign had denied us a trip to Austria Wien in the Conference League next season.

So it’s time to bask in the glow of a team that’s once again done its supporters proud. Finishing 14th, eight points clear of relegation, surpassed all expectations — already well ahead of the club’s aim of back to back 15th-place finishes in seasons two and three in the Premier League as pitched by the 49ers to potential investors, prompting Farke’s pleas a couple of weeks ago to sit down and draw up a new long-term plan, with an understandable and pointed reference to the mistakes made under Marcelo Bielsa the last time Leeds were in such a position of strength. As scornful as I like to be of the suits, this was hardly a warning of the need to improve the squad this summer — whatever the plan was for next year, I don’t think it included a bench of Alfie Cresswell and Rhys Chadwick.

As pointed out by Opta’s Jonny Cooper, for all the talk of signing experienced players with knowhow last summer, this has been the first time in the club’s entire history that Leeds have gone through a league campaign without naming a single outfield player over the age of thirty. Many of those players have spent the last three years grafting their bollocks off under intense pressure and scrutiny. I’d have been absolutely fine had Ethan Ampadu played the last three games of this season once safety was secured with a traffic cone on his head, so I’m not going to hold a lazy backpass to Callum Wilson in stoppage time on the final day of the year against him. After all, they’re only human, and it was a relief for all involved that, just for once, a bunch of young lads were blessed with half an hour when they could afford to stop fighting. ⬢