To say Leeds United were playing with Cardiff City is the understatement of the season. Poor Cardiff did not know what day of the week it was.
Adapting the majesty of Barry Davies 53 years ago perhaps best sums up what went on at Elland Road yesterday.
Davies was the commentator as the BBC brought Leeds’ famous slaughter of Southampton to a national television audience through Match of the Day on March 4, 1972. For many people, Don Revie’s iconic Leeds side reached the peak of their powers with a 7-0 thrashing of Ted Bates’ visitors in the First Division.
Leeds did not win one of their three league titles that year. They were pipped by Brian Clough’s Derby County, who snuck it by a point. However, a lot of the commentary around that 7-0 win, the last time Leeds won by such a scoreline before Saturday, marks it as the high point of Revie’s celebrated tenure.
Will yesterday’s mauling come to be known as the moment it clicked for Daniel Farke? The German will hope it is not the high point, given the prize in their crosshairs, but will history come to see it as the watershed game that unleashed the machine he has been crafting?
They hit 90 points last season and scored 81 goals. This year, they are on course for 96 points and 92 goals. And yet there have been critics of Farke’s tactics. His side’s domination of territory and possession, against vastly inferior opponents, has been branded boring by some supporters. Monday’s damp squib in Burnley did not help the narrative.
Leeds came away from Lancashire with an expected goal (xG) tally of 0.36, their lowest this season. A clean sheet and draw away against a title rival was not to be sniffed at, but a response was needed on Saturday. As responses go, this was as resounding as Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope retort during The Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman. Leeds scored seven goals from 5.7 xG, their best this season, had 29 shots and created seven Opta-defined big chances. The match dashboard below illustrates their dominance.
While Burnley were posting their 10th 0-0 draw of the season in Portsmouth, Leeds were putting Cardiff, unbeaten in seven, to the sword. Farke’s side are now five points clear of Burnley in third and, for the first time, threatening to break the elastic between them and the play-offs.
As Farke put it post-match, it is only three points, but the impact of this win could last three months.
First and foremost, it sends a message to the rest of the division. This season’s wage bill is the second biggest in Championship history, bettered only by last season’s outlay at Elland Road. The expectation has always been that last year’s play-off losers would hit the front in 2024-25, but Sheffield United, Burnley and Sunderland have clung on until now. Sunderland need to beat seventh-placed Middlesbrough on Monday to bring their gap to Leeds down to five points.
United’s rivals for the title will not give up the chase, and Farke will certainly not be counting any chickens, but the manner of the win, as February arrives and games played ticks into the 30s, feels ominous. It’s the kind of win that crystallises a sense of invincibility in the dressing room.
Every member of the team will have gone home with a spring in their step on Saturday night. There are more hard yards to get through, but shared experiences like this will stand Leeds in good stead if the chips are down in April. Joe Rodon, Jayden Bogle, Ao Tanaka and Daniel James were already sky-high in confidence, but this game will do wonders for Brenden Aaronson, Wilfried Gnonto, Joel Piroe, Junior Firpo and Mateo Joseph.
Even Pascal Struijk came through nearly 20 minutes on his return from injury, while Farke could rest Bogle, James, Aaronson, Manor Solomon and Tanaka before Wednesday’s trip to Coventry City. It was the perfect afternoon, save for Largie Ramazani’s omission from the scoresheet, a blot on the copybook Farke could smile about post-match.
Patrick Bamford is the only senior member of the squad in the treatment room. The group is in such rude health that Isaac Schmidt could not even get into the matchday 20 yesterday. The defenders are keeping clean sheets, the attackers are scoring or creating and Farke is balancing out everyone’s minutes. Imagine adding further firepower to that between now and 11pm on Monday.
Cameron Archer, missing from Southampton’s squad yesterday, must wonder whether he would get a kick in this team or fill his boots with one of the most creative outfits in the land. The 23-year-old is wanted on a loan deal at Elland Road, but as of Saturday evening, his club were not willing to sanction a move.
This whitewash has not altered Farke’s opinion on reinforcements. A loss or draw would not have triggered a flurry of panic buys and this hammering does not leave him feeling his squad is flawless. Leeds, Farke and his recruitment team have promised to stay awake on Monday until the final hour of this transfer window.
And while it seemed Cardiff did not know what day of the week it was on Saturday, for Leeds supporters, it is a date in Farke’s tenure they are unlikely to forget.
(Top photo: Richard Sellers/PA Images via Getty Images)
