Leeds United have the worst possible news for the Championship and free agent's status reminder

-Credit: (Image: Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images)
-Credit: (Image: Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images)


Only 15 days ago, ahead of the clash with league leaders Sunderland, fears were mounting about what Leeds United would do with their midfield predicament. Losing their two lynchpins to serious knee injuries across the space of three days was unimaginable.

Ethan Ampadu and Ilia Gruev had been so solid in their availability to Daniel Farke since the start of last season. Losing both, virtually the only natural defensive midfielders in the squad, at the same time, for months apiece, was hard to fathom.

There was no doubting Ao Tanaka and Joe Rothwell’s credentials as seasoned professionals, but their profiles were too creative for the dirty work Gruev and Ampadu normally get through. Jobe Bellingham’s repeated shots at goal from the edge of the area on Wearside underlined the work that was needed to bed this new pair in.

Farke spoke of modifying their system to make it work for players better used to playing as eights or 10s further up the field. The free agent market would be mined in the meantime, for someone with a more defensive set of attributes.

As they came into Friday’s game, arguably the toughest of the season at Elland Road, Tanaka was on the back of a long-haul flight from Japan and a Tuesday game. The fear was they would be exposed by the in-form Blades, but those fears could not have been more unfounded.

They were both glorious in the middle. They took control of the game from after the opening 10 minutes and and ran the show. Pass after pass after pass never let the visitors settle and always kept pushing the Whites forward.

Only Joe Rodon and Pascal Struijk touched the ball or completed more accurate passes than the midfield pair. Tanaka completed an extraordinary 14 passes into the final third and Rothwell notched nine, underlining the impact they were having on getting United forward.

They were strong in the tackle, put their boot in and ensured United were not left unprotected whenever the visitors did try to break on them. Rothwell was especially immense in all areas of the game.

They will need a free agent to ensure these two are not picking up every minute until January, but any fears about how this pair will fair have been washed away emphatically.

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A corner goal at last

A run of 28 games without scoring from a corner finally ended on Friday night. It was perhaps less surprising that it came from Pascal Struijk, a notorious presence at set-pieces, but usually from his forehead.

What pleased the skipper and Farke most was the clean execution of a training ground routine. The intention was for Rothwell to curl in a lower delivery and for Struijk to time his run onto a half-volley.

It gets the monkey off their collective back and allows everyone to let go of that particular frustration until they go another 28 matches without finding the net.

Jet lag? What jet lag?

The key narrative in the run-up to this game was the dire preparation time Farke and his staff had been given with his squad. Tanaka and Junior Firpo each played in different timezones on Tuesday before landing in the UK on Wednesday morning.

Brenden Aaronson was playing in Mexico until 5.30am on Wednesday and did not report back to Thorp Arch until Thursday morning. The manager effectively had two video sessions with his starting line-up as a collective before kick-off.

All three might have been rotated if they weren’t so important, but they all convinced Farke they were ready to go and put in stellar performances, even if Aaronson was a little off the boil. The overall team display was all the more remarkable for how little time they had to prepare together.

More good news from the bench

It was a night where everything seemed to click for Farke. Not only did his gamble on an unchanged line-up pay off, but his emergency midfield pairing staked their claim for the league’s finest current partnership.

The corner hoodoo was ended, Mateo Joseph finished a superb striker’s goal despite being left out of the team, no further injuries were suffered and he had the luxury of saving some legs at the end of injury time. There were even returns to action for Manor Solomon and Daniel James.

Leeds are going to need everyone to put in a shift over the coming months if they want to win promotion. With central defence and midfield looking a little thin on the ground, the returns of those wingers were a major boon for the whole club.

The four attacking options Farke had on the bench will intimidate any Championship opponent this season. If their wage bill is as historically big as Angus Kinnear suggests, that is the embarrassment of riches Farke has to make the best use of. It's the worst possible news for the rest of the league.