Daniel Farke’s style of play is difficult to pin down, but the German has already accomplished something that Jesse Marsch and Marcelo Bielsa were unable to do following last weekend’s Championship victory over Plymouth Argyle.
Farke, unlike his Elland Road predecessors, is not widely regarded as a high-pressing coach; even less so, as some have claimed. In fact, in an era when the footballing jargon seeks to categorize coaches and players into specific categories and descriptors – long-ball, park-the-bus, heavy-metal-football, and so on – Farke’s style does not fit into any of these categories.
Despite this, Leeds are currently the most effective pressing side in the Championship, at least in terms of goal scoring and chance creation. Last weekend, the Whites scored twice after turning over possession in the opposition’s defensive third, capitalizing quickly. Those who remember Jesse Marsch’s 11 months in charge at Elland Road will recall the American’s preference for winning the ball back high up the pitch in order to produce good-quality attempts while reducing the distance required to transport the ball to the opponent’s goal. However, Marsch discovered that his team was ill-equipped to carry out this specific style and suffered as a result.
Farke, on the other hand, has Leeds ticking out of possession despite being in a lower division. According to football data collection experts Opta, Leeds’ press is the league’s third-most suffocating, allowing opponents the third-fewest passes on average before white shirts attempt to retrieve the ball. As a result, United has the most shot-ending high turnovers in the league, with 33. This means that Leeds is winning the ball ‘in open play within forty metres of the opponent’s goal’ and shooting more than any other team in the second tier.
But what good are shots if they don’t result in goals? Leeds are also joint-top of the Championship table in terms of goal-ending high turnovers, with five each, alongside Sunderland and West Bromwich Albion. Last Saturday, Glen Kamara’s pressing of Kaine Kesler-Hayden on the edge of the Plymouth box directly contributed to the Argyle full-back’s miscued clearance landing at the grateful feet of Daniel James 18 yards from goal. Crysencio Summerville’s successful pressure on Julio Pleguezuelo later in the half set up compatriot Joel Piroe for his sixth goal of the season and Leeds’ fifth goal-ending high turnover of the season.
As a result, Leeds became only the second Championship team this season to score two goals from high turnovers in the same game, the other being Sunderland’s 5-0 win over Southampton. Perhaps more notably given Marsch’s tenure and that of the man he replaced, Marcelo Bielsa, whose high-energy football was championed en route to promotion and a ninth-place Premier League finish, Leeds’ two high turnover goals against the Pilgrims were the first time the Whites had scored twice in the same game since record collection of this particular metric began in 2014/15.
While Farke has accomplished something that neither Marsch nor Bielsa were able to accomplish with their respective teams, he has yet to match their achievements of, in the Argentine’s case, winning promotion or keeping the team in the Premier League. The latter, which he was unable to achieve twice with Norwich City, remained a source of contention for the 47-year-old when he met with reporters on July 4 at his Elland Road unveiling, desperate for another crack at top flight management in England.
Since the German’s arrival, a lot has changed, including personnel at Elland Road, but the manager has been able to put entertainment – and winning – back on the menu. At its best, Bielsa’s football was a spectacle for the neutral, anchored by relentless running, a suffocating man-to-man pressing structure, and a never-say-die approach to falling behind.Marsch, while not a huge success, did preside over some of the more bizarre encounters in recent memory, as well as a great escape that you couldn’t take your eyes off. He, too, was proud of his team’s ability to run itself into the ground. Marsch-ball sputtered and threatened to catch fire, but never did, whereas Bielsa-ball worked until it didn’t. Farke-ball is similar in some ways but very different in others.
Crucially, the manager has restored that crucial winning component to Leeds’ style of play. Even if Leeds’ two goals at the weekend were the definition of gegenpressing, his style can’t be summed up in a single word, but with nine wins in 16 league games, it’s undeniable that whatever you call it, it works.
