2025/26 reviewed: Upstairs, downstairs
Tactics, strategy and many, many PowerPoints. We got a new team and we're getting a new West Stand, so how are things looking in the manager's office and the boardroom?
New books!
I've got two new books available:
Season 2025/26 collects all my writing from last season into one large format softback book, with photos by the brilliant Lee Brown. This is available for pre-order, and buying it now helps me order the right amount from the printers, so please don't delay!
Europe, 2000/01 brings the articles I wrote this year on the 25th anniversary of every Champions League match together in a pocket paperback format, 164 pages of (mostly) great memories. This is available now!
If you order both, you'll automatically get a £2 discount at the checkout.
Leedsista is entirely written by me, a human person, and entirely funded by people like you, Leeds fans, who think decent non-AI, non-clickbait writing about their football team is worth £3 a month to read or £5 a month to listen to the podcast version.
If you enjoy reading what I write, I hope you'll consider becoming a paying member to help keep it getting written.
Find out what you can get with a 30 day free trial:
Daniel Farke
We've been doing that thing to Daniel Farke for three years now, you know the thing, where you nod and smile at someone as if you're listening to them but all the time you're looking slightly over their shoulder, scanning the room, to see if there's anyone more interesting around.
Impossible situation after relegation? Hmm, yeah, sounds bad that. Best second division season in our history? Yeah, really? You don't say? 14th in the Premier League, was it, after the last six promoted teams all went down? And all without the creative attacker you wanted? Wow, Daniel — it is Daniel, isn't it? — that's — wait, is that Arne Slot? Back in a minute —
A problem about Farke is that he has never overcome a fan's feeling that he could be doing much better with what he has. Even this season, when 14th was much further up the table than anyone predicted, United's habit of conceding late — fourteen after the 80th minute in the Premier League — cost at least nine points that, given they include a win thrown away against Bournemouth, could have had Leeds finishing 6th. That would have been above Sunderland, the team that spoils our boasting about staying up against trends. If the Mackems can come up through the play-offs and qualify for Europe, why did the Peacocks settle for 14th?
Farke's counter-argument is tough for him to win because it's about saying things could have been much worse, and that can stray into Chicken Littling. But Burnley existed this season, if only barely, to show how easily promotion can get screwed up. West Ham United and Tottenham demonstrated that there's more to the game than brute resource, and getting the best out of players isn't easy. And Farke's own first twelve-and-a-half games were evidence of how much worse Leeds could have been.
Keep reading for free
Join Leedsista as a FREE Keep in Touch member to keep reading this and many more articles