And so to the Stadium of Stone for the first time this season, to welcome newly promoted Leeds United for Saturday’s early evening kick-off.
‘Holics of a certain age will wince at memories of encounters with Don Revie’s ‘Dirty’ Leeds in the early 1970s. What those of the Scottish persuasion call a proper stramash was never more than a Bremner, Giles, Hunter, Charlton, Cooper, Reaney, Lorrimer, Jones, Clarke or Gray tackle away, as they fought us — I choose the verb advisedly — to be English football’s top dog.
Recounting the history of Leeds United and its predecessor, Leeds City, can wait until the game at Elland Road in January. Suffice it to say that the club spent 16 seasons — 16 seasons with a fair degree of turbulence off the field — out of the top flight until the high-octane Marcelo Bielsa took the team back to the Premier League for the 2020-21 season.
He kept it there for one campaign, but was sacked in the February of his second, replaced by Jesse Marsch, who kept it up by a whisker. Marsch was fired the following February, and his successor, Javi Gracia, in May. The old walrus himself, Sam Allardyce, oversaw the last knockings before relegation.
Daniel Farke, who had taken Norwich up from the Championship twice and back down once, was appointed on July 4 2023, a few days before Leeds became fully controlled by 49ers Enterprises. That is the venture capital arm of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, which is owned by scions of Edward DeBartolo, an Ohio real estate developer who was the progenitor of the post-World War 2 suburban shopping mall.
49ers Enterprises, which includes Glasgow Rangers in its portfolio, first acquired a minority stake in Leeds in 2018. Like many US owners of British football clubs, it has taken in minority investors. The ownership consortium now includes several prominent US basketball players and golfers, including Jordon Spieth, and Red Bull, now also Leeds’ shirt sponsor. RB’s Global Sporting Director, Jurgen Klopp, presumably has some management involvement with the club.
Perhaps that is why Farke switched to Klopp’s favoured 4-3-3 from his (Farke’s) habitual 4-2-3-1 for last Monday’s game against Everton (OK, that was an entirely fanciful segue). Nonetheless, Leeds won on its return to the PL 1-0 with a dodgy penalty, having otherwise failed to turn majority possession into goals.
Your matchday trivia: the penalty scorer, Lukas Nmecha, was the first Leeds player to score a penalty on his debut since Percy Whipp against West Ham in 1922, although Nmecha didn’t match Whipp in making it part of a hat-trick.
Daniel Farke
Farke spent his playing career in the lower reaches of German football, scoring 76 goals in 109 matches, mainly for his local team, SV Lippstadt, where he also started his managerial career before moving down the road to coach Borussia Dortmund’s reserves.
He went from there to Norwich, where, as well as overseeing two promotions and one relegation in four seasons, he set the unwanted record of losing the most Premier League games in succession (15). Russia’s invasion of Ukraine aborted his subsequent appointment at Krasnodar without managing a game. He returned to Germany for a season with Borussia Monchengladbach, whence Elland Road.
Saturday will be Farke’s 51st PL match. He has won just seven, the lowest win rate of any manager to oversee at least 50 PL games.
The opposition
Despite losing only one of their final 28 Championship matches last season, Leeds have signed nine new players. All are between the ages of 25 and 28, and add strength, size and experience. One is Brazilian Lucas Perri, who arrived from Lyon to replace the talented but error-prone young Frenchman Illan Meslier as senior glove butler. Perri has been called up by his national squad but not won a cap. Against Everton last Monday, his footwork suggested he may be vulnerable to aggressive pressing.
In front of him, the starting full-backs will likely be Gabriel Gudmundsson, a Swedish international, and Reading-born Jayden Bogle. Both are quick. strong and like to push forward. Both looked useful in the first half against Everton, when Leeds overloaded the midfield and dominated possession. However, once Moyes reset after half-time and got service to Everton’s wingers, the pair looked less solid defensively. Farke said in his pre-match press conference that he is looking for reinforcements.
Pascal Struijk, a Belgian with three Dutch U-17 caps and Indonesian eligibility, and a standout last season in the Championship, will likely start at left centre-back alongside Welsh international and ex-Spud Joe Rodon or Slovenian international Jaka Bijol, bought from Udinese in the summer to add Serie A defensive nous, and could make his PL debut.
Ao Tanaka, club captain Ethan Ampadu, another of Leeds’ Welsh internationals, and Anton Stach, another summer arrival, from TSG Hoffenheim, started the Everton game in midfield. A lot of Leeds’ play went through the lively-looking Japanese international, who seems a bargain at £4 million from Fortuna Düsseldorf last summer.
One of Moyes’s lumpen proletariat inflicted an MCL injury on Ampadu, who will be out until at least the next interlull (unbelievably only a few weeks away). Sean Longstaff, who arrived from Newcastle this summer, may get his first start after coming on as a substitute against Everton. Bulgarian international Ilia Gruev, who came on when Ampadu went off, is another option.
Like Ampadu, Stach, who was a member of Germany’s team at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and is the son of a well-known German TV sports broadcaster, Matthias Stach, can also play at centre back, and tends to lie deeper than Tanaka. Regardless, Arteta is unlikely to give Leeds’ midfield the space Everton allowed them to make hay in the first half.
Farke is spoiled for choice when it comes to wingers, although he says he would like a couple more. The young, pint-sized Piedmontese-born Wilfried Gnonto, who has 17 Italy U-21 caps, and even shorter Dan James, who has more than three times as many full caps for Wales despite growing up only 50 miles from Leeds, started against Everton. They will face competition for their places from Jack Harrison, recently returned from a loan at Everton, and Noah Okafor, newly bought from AC Milan. Okafor, who can play across the front line, arrived this week but has been registered for Saturday’s game.
Leeds picked up Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Nmecha this summer on free transfers after they left Everton and Wolfsburg, respectively. They will share the No. 9 responsibilities with Joel Piroe, the Dutchman who was Leeds’ top scorer in the Championship last season with 19 goals and seven assists. Fan favourite Patrick Bamford has fallen out of favour.
Whether Farke can strike the right balance in using the England international, the German international and Piroe, who was an ever-present last season, and whether the Dutchman finds PL defences as porous as those in the Championship, will go a long way to determining whether Leeds stay up or go straight back down — as 17 Predictathon players expect.
The Arsenal
Havertz’s wounded knee returns us to familiar ground: starting with the injury news. In addition to the German, Nørgaard is unavailable. Jesus won’t be back before late November. Benny Bianco is 50/50. Timber’s workload needs to be managed.
My two cents are that Arteta will start much the same team as against the Red Mancs, as he looks to build cohesion. Thus:
Raya
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori
Ødegaard, Zubimendi, Rice
Saka, Gyokeres, Martinelli.
Bench: A strong one.
Cristhian Mosquera could make his debut, given the lack of a right back who can last 90 minutes. If our captain plays, he will become the 118th player to make 200 appearances for the club.
The Emirates faithful will want to see the first home game of the season won in style. It is a game we should win. The PL table, which shows the two sides in joint sixth with identical records, belies the gulf in quality.
The gentlemen of the turf have us firm favourites, and offer relatively miserly odds on 3-0 and 4-0 home wins. Either score would suffice. I would happily take the scoreline from Leeds’ first visit to Highbury in 1924 with Gyokeres reprising the Jimmy Brain role of scoring four (one from a cross, one 25-yard screamer, one breakaway and one header) in a 6-1 win. It will likely be much closer. Most of all, we want to be on six points at the end of the evening. What do points mean? Points mean prizes.
Enjoy the game, ‘holics near and far.
Nice one, Ned. I think you’ve called the starting XI correctly and provided a fine potted history of a club I don’t think I’ve seen since we thrashed them 5-0 with 4 from TH14 in the Invincible season when they were relegated in 2004. Apart, that is, from that 2012 cup tie when TH14, on loan from New York Red Bulls, scored the winner in 2012. After that 5-0 victory, my son and I were accosted by a drunken and weeping Leeds fan in Arsenal tube station begging us to ensure that Manure did not ever win the league again as he predicted, correctly as it turned out, that Leeds would not be able to stop them for a very long time – they WERE that bad! I thought that plea was rich coming from a fan of the club that had twice, through Viduka and Hasselbaink ensured that we had not beaten Manure to the silverware in two previous seasons
Sadly, I don’t see this ending 5-0 or 6-1. As ever, I’ll be happy with any kind of win but will be delighted if Gyökeres opens his PL account with at least one goal and look forward to welcoming EE10 back to the Arsenal family.
COYG
DLUMBD
To big leads & Eze wins! UTA!
Thanks Ned, an excellent preview of our first home game of the season.
Like you I wouldn’t expect many if any changes from last week’s team,
maybe at full back or out wide but whoever starts should be too good
for Leeds
Should be a busy week or so for exits I guess and the first one since Marquinhos (I think) is Karl Hein off on loan to Werder Bremen. Best of luck to him
Thanks Ned
Norman bites yer legs – still wincing at the thought.
We need to notch it up some from last week – a silkier performance and more goals please.
3-0 sounds about right.
UTA.
Excellent, Ned. Much to chew on before I chew on more in a Nicea Place to Stuffa Your Face pre-match.
I watched Leeds game vs Everton and thought they played quite well and looked fairly dangerous in the first half. I hope that you are absolutely correct and that we will control the game through midfield dominance. If we do, I fancy us to win.
I too will be delighted if Big Vik gets off the mark in the Prem. Three points, clean sheet, no more injuries and I’ll be quite happen at the end of 90+ minutes.
NLFE and COYG
Excellent, Ned – packed full of hitherto unknown facts and figures on Dirty Leeds. Norman Hunter did indeed bite many legs until he tried it on with 3’6” Franny Lee, then of Derby County, who had him running away from a barrage of haymakers right there in the middle of the pitch. One of my favourite Leeds memories !
Anyway, Mr North Bank, you’ve set the bar almost unattainably high for the rest of us preview writers to match, for which I would like to thank you very much. I think !
Spuds are 2-0 up and 115ty look quite poor so far.
Lucky not to be down to 10 men really as I thought Trafford could
easily have been sent off.
Thanks for the kind words, gentlemen.
BtM@6: I agree with you that Leeds dominated the first half against Everton. They had a midfield overload and could ping the ball around as they always had a free man to receive it. Once Moyes sorted out Everton’s formation at halftime, it was a far more even game.
Trev@7: You will pun vault over any bar.
You may enjoy Allaster McAllaster on the Hunter/Franny Lee stramash
https://youtube.com/shorts/UjfToB2ZNuI?si=b0nvf8EjDAlbHDeT
My prediction that City would steamroll them doesn’t look very clever. Thomas Frank is an upgrade over Ange for sure. In the long run, maybe a good result for us. We need City and ‘Pool to drop points.
As for us, I expect a comfortable 3-0 win, Gyokeres to have a big game.
Ned, yep I know the clip well – always good for a laugh !
Manduke starts, Martinelli drops to bench. White off games. Dowman among the subs.
Raya
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori
Zubimendi, Odegaard (c), Rice
Saka, Gyökeres, Madueke
Timber for Ben and Noni for Gabi M are the two changes from last week’s XI.
Max Dowman makes a strong bench.
CoYGS!
Pipped by a bare minute 😃
Trev@11. McKallister is a lawyer in Austin, Texas in real life. That must be why his sideburns are so huge. Everything’s bigger in Texas.
OM@14: It’s all in the timing, as the actress said to the bishop
Thanks Ned, a most interesting read as usual. We must be the most informative blog in the goonerverse!
A strong team and a strong bench as & when required. The bigger the win the better – grind them into the dust please. The Dirty Leeds of the 60s & 70s must always be a pay back.
COYRRR
Another week, another cracking corner and 1-0 to The Arsenal!
On thé other hand Ode going off is worrying.
4-0 is great, and a goal for Viktor, and Timber on a hat-trick!
But seeing Saka going off, I hope it’s not too bad. We are dropping like flies
I think Max Dowman is coming on, yes he is.
That is amazing really,
Eze, Eze, Ezeeeeeeee …
Nearly got to six…
Farke has a better squad at Leeds than he did at Norwich, but he is going to struggle to keep them up on that showing.
One of the advantages of our off-season squad bolstering is that Arteta can get the injured off immediately, and, even if we have to go to Anfield without Saka, Ødegaard and Havertz, we can still field and attack of Madueke, Eze and Martinelli behind Gyokeres, which makes the trip just daunting, not impossibly so.
I didn’t acknowledge an excellent preview Ned, Thankyou
A comfortable win against a limited side but there were some great aspects including Eze’s signing and big moments for Gyokeres and Dowman …but those injuries!
I just noticed over my morning coffee that we’ve pipped the poor little
Spuddoes to the top of the league spot. It feels familiar somehow. Have we pipped them to anything else recently?
>>>>>>>