Not since the heady days of Marcelo Bielsa’s top-half-chasing Premier League Whites have Leeds United gone six unbeaten in the league, yet eight games into Daniel Farke’s tenure as boss, the team are closing in on a seventh straight league match without defeat.
The last time Leeds managed to go seven unbeaten was in the summer of 2020, as the team clinched automatic promotion and the Championship title.
A resumption to the COVID-affected 2019/20 campaign saw Leeds win seven and draw one of their final eight games that season, ending their top flight exile in style, albeit behind closed doors.
The following year brought intrigue and anticipation, even if supporters were glued to their television screens, rather than witnessing Bielsa’s football in the Premier League first-hand.
What was delivered was a ninth-place finish as the Whites once again finished the season strongly, losing just once in their last 11 games, winning seven.
Since then, being a Leeds United supporter has not been much fun. The revered Argentine was sacked in February 2022, and the club retained their Premier League status by a hair’s breadth three months later.
The year that followed would show their final day heroics at Brentford to have been nothing more than a stay of execution.
Farke’s arrival has brought with it an air of sensibility. Leeds are playing attractive, effective football again and reaping the rewards on the pitch. Crisis is never far from the corridors of Elland Road, and yet currently there is a distinct feeling of calm about the place.
This weekend, the team visit St. Mary’s Stadium, where Southampton find themselves in anything but a state of serenity. Four consecutive defeats and no clean sheets this season has increased the pressure on new man in the dugout Russell Martin.
The prospect of five straight losses would be difficult to stomach for any side, especially a newly-relegated one in receipt of parachute payments, boasting a team of players tipped to be challenging at the top of the table.
On the flip side, Leeds could go seven unbeaten should they avoid defeat on the south coast. It would still be some way off the separate 11-game and eight-match streaks achieved during 2019/20 en route to the title, but such a run would indicate travel in the right direction.
Most encouraging to Farke following last weekend’s 3-0 win over Watford was a fourth consecutive clean sheet. The team struggled defensively throughout their three-year Premier League stay, therefore rectifying one of the leakiest backlines in English professional football was a top priority for the German upon his arrival.
Eight games may well be too soon to speak definitively of Farke and his staff’s ability to corral this Leeds unit into a watertight group, but again, it suggests Leeds are journeying on the right path, if their goals for the season are to be achieved.
This period of unusual tranquillity at Elland Road will not last forever but the way in which the team have conducted themselves of late, the return of key players and Leeds’ next opponent out of sorts, there is a reasonable expectation this run of theirs could continue for at least one week more.
