There was fight at Elland Road: the most convincing display of it in the West Stand, where a steward tried to confiscate an inflatable doughnut but fell foul of a crowd ready to scrap for its survival.
On the pitch? Not so much. And the twitching vibe which has infiltrated Leeds United’s dressing room was there to see as the last embers of automatic promotion cooled to nothing on the regular season’s final day. Those who stayed behind after full time tried to rev it up as the players walked around the pitch, a constructive rocket up the a***, as if to remind them the race wasn’t run. Because Leeds had not given the impression that they were nicely primed to go again.
Smile, it’s the play-offs; the time of year when Leeds find reality imitating nightmares.
With the numbers in attendance dwindling as the clock ticked towards the end of a 2-1 home defeat against Southampton yesterday, what other thought except that thousands were going home to dig out their brown trousers?
It’s Norwich City over two legs in the semi-finals now, away next Sunday then here four days later. Daniel Farke against the club he once breathed oxygen into, bang at the centre of the narrative. And limited prospects of success if the retreat of form and verve in the last month of the regular Championship season cannot be reversed.
Farke spent four years at Norwich, winning two promotions from the Championship (James Baylis – AMA/Getty Images)
They hate the play-offs around here, genuinely hate them, but the tightrope Leeds are now walking is not predominantly about that.
What the Elland Road crowd sees is a team passively free-wheeling, in sharp contrast to the early part of the year, and nothing in either last week’s schooling at Queens Park Rangers or this low-octane loss to Southampton — potential Wembley opponents if they beat West Bromwich Albion in the other semi-final — cast Leeds as a team in the process of regrouping, or a team who knew they would be OK whether Ipswich Town pipped them to the second automatic promotion place or not.
Farke is wearing his bravest face, with a week now between games to show that all will end well and that his confidence is not a bluff.
Rationally, yesterday was not set up to go spectacularly differently. A point at home was all Ipswich needed against relegation candidates Huddersfield Town to make automatic promotion theirs. The version of Huddersfield they walked all over at Portman Road was the type of Terrier a wild animal would choose to be hunted by.
But still, the functionality of Farke’s team has been waning gradually. Individual form feels more bottled up. Attacks are prising Leeds open and hurting them in areas where they were not hurting before. When Jack Stephens stepped past their midfield early in the second half, the crowd had lost count of the number of times Southampton had driven a coach, horses and trailing wind through that part of the pitch. Something about Southampton has that effect on them.
Leeds midfielder Ilia Gruev reflects on a home defeat to Southampton (Ed Sykes/Getty Images)
Later, Farke was subjected to the surreal sound of the fans urging a shot whenever the ball was passed — anyone, everyone, somebody hit it. Confidence has receded, he admitted, and not only among his players. He did not want to say that Leeds threw automatic promotion away — that having been top in mid-March, it was a waste to have let Ipswich and Leicester City off the hook.
Russell Martin, Southampton’s manager and a former player under Farke at Norwich, backed him up. “It’s so difficult this season,” Martin said. “We went 25 games unbeaten and finished fourth.”
The Championship’s top four might never be so ferociously strong again as it’s been this season.
Farke’s explanation for yesterday’s struggle to stop Southampton finding space in the pocket in front of his back four was that he had asked his side to gamble more than usual positionally, to push forward on the basis that a draw was no use to them. Duly, neither Ilia Gruev nor Glen Kamara was reliably on hand when Southampton flooded into the gaps.
Adam Armstrong scored their first goal from a low Che Adams cross. Four other Southampton players were hovering unattended behind him. Joel Piroe equalised soon after, applying the boot-through-the-ball trick which is definitely his strength, but Southampton won the game 14 minutes later. Kyle Walker-Peters chased a long ball over the top properly. Junior Firpo didn’t. Walker-Peters skinned him and gave Will Smallbone, a problem for Leeds before then, a side-footed tap-in.
Farke’s comments implied that when it came to his game plan for the semi-final first leg at Carrow Road, he would purposely tighten Leeds up. It goes without saying that conceding goals so cheaply as this would kill them in the play-offs. He has his hands full in the days ahead: work to do on form, tactics, mental doubts and tension.
“I’ve never lost in the play-offs,” he joked, which is true. Just ignore the reason why. “My only focus is that it feels like this team is the third-best team in the league. We fully deserve to reward ourselves with the big prize (of promotion). This group deserves it. This club deserves it.”
Leeds, though, signed off from game 46 of 2023-24 as a club unsure of their fate.
As for the inflatable doughnut’s fate, no news — except to say that Elland Road has upped its standards. Nine years ago, the most eye-opening thing circulating through the place on the season’s last day was a blow-up doll.
The next time Leeds play here, it will not be a night for passing round inflatables. An inhaler might be better.
(Top photo: Ian Hodgson/PA Images via Getty Images)
