Leeds United manager Daniel Farke and the recruitment team had a very specific idea in their heads once Premier League promotion was secured last season. They were preparing for a challenge that had proved to be a bridge too far for all the promoted teams last season – surviving in their first season back in the top flight.
The Whites were presented with the challenge of building a squad good enough to survive in the Premier League while ensuring that they do not break the league’s dreaded financial regulations known as PSR. Leeds, by their own admission, maxed out their PSR for the season by spending more than £100m on 10 new signings.
The Leeds recruitment policy had one very common theme – the club brought in players who were strong and physically robust, almost as if they were building a squad for a Premier League season of the 2000s, where set-pieces were extremely important.
Farke focused on building a throwback Premier League team of giants, but by early-season metrics of the league, the Leeds manager and the recruitment team got their plans spot on.
Daniel Farke gambled on the Premier League’s changing face, and he was right
Farke rightly understood that promoted teams in recent years suffered due to their obsession with outplaying far superior opponents in the Premier League and the lack of physicality in their team.
The arrivals of Anton Stach, Sean Longstaff, Jaka Bijol, Gabriel Gudmundsson and Dominic Calvert-Lewin were aimed at having serious physical players down the spine of the team.
If Leeds were not going to outplay teams in the Premier League, Farke was keen to ensure that they did not get bullied, and that’s exactly how the Whites have looked this season.
However, it is unclear whether Farke and sporting director Adam Underwood anticipated the change in the Premier League’s nature this season.
It’s not a full 2000s revival, but the Premier League is less expansive, less creative and more direct this season. There are fewer passes, more long throws and more set-piece goals.
After seven rounds and 70 matches, only 182 goals have been scored, an average of 2.6 per game, putting this season on track to be the lowest-scoring Premier League campaign since 2014-15.
Pep Guardiola has received a lot of grief for making English football, even down to the lower leagues, obsessed about playing out from the back and the rise of possession stats.
However, the Premier League is changing again, and passes per game have come down drastically to just 849 per game this season, the lowest figure since 2010-11.
Even Guardiola has been forced to change, and Manchester City’s numbers are down from 688 in 2017-18, their record-breaking first title-winning campaign under Guardiola, to 496 this season.
Long throws are back in fashion this season. In 2019-20 and 2020-21, just six per cent of throw-ins from the attacking third were sent into the penalty area. That figure stands at 27 per cent this season.
Goals from dead-ball situations (corners, free kicks and throw-ins, but not penalties) have risen to 0.7 per game, the highest of any season since 2010/11.
19.8 per cent of goals have been headed in this season, the highest since the 2000/01 season.
Farke’s Leeds look at home in the Premier League
Leeds are 15th in the Premier League table, but their performances have merited more points, and they should be higher up the league table.
Leeds have competed comfortably in the new Premier League and show no signs of being a team that could get relegated this season.
Farke and the recruitment team have built a Leeds team that look at home in a more physical and robust Premier League where set pieces and physicality are going to be defining traits.
Leeds are one of the best teams in the league when it comes to winning defensive duels, and that has given them the competitive edge despite being a promoted side.
The height in the Leeds team gives them an advantage in both boxes, and in a league where goals from set-pieces are on the up, the Whites have the players to take advantage.
Leeds’ physicality has taken even established Premier League sides by surprise as Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola attested after the 2-2 draw at Elland Road.
Teams will need to slog it out in the middle and be more physical to excel in the Premier League this season, and Leeds have the squad to do exactly that.
Can you name the team Leeds United signed these players from in the 2000s?
