Leeds United circuit-breaker flaw from Farke as major play-offs concern emerges

As a few fans put it on social media last night: it was hard to believe how poorly Leeds United, after 90 points in 44 games, could play in such a big game. There was tension and pressure in the matches with Leicester City and Ipswich Town, but Friday night in Shepherd’s Bush was almost certainly the biggest match of the season.

Daniel Farke’s side had the chance to turn the screw on Ipswich, open up their lead to four points and watch the Suffolk outfit try to win three matches in seven days after two weeks off. The United press corps generally felt if Leeds took three points back to Elland Road the pressure would be too much for Ipswich.

As ever, assumption is the mother of all foul-ups. Leeds could not even take care of their own business. They have not only consigned themselves to the play-offs lottery, Ipswich implosion aside, but taken all the pressure off Kieran McKenna’s side, who now only need five of their remaining nine available points to guarantee top-flight football.

READ MORE: Leeds United apology made to QPR after regrettable Loftus Road incident

Leeds have not convinced for any meaningful period of time since returning from the international break, but Monday’s win on Teesside had been seen as the straightener that would put them right. While not mathematically safe, Queens Park Rangers were virtually there before kick-off and, in theory, were there for the taking as a side that has struggled at the wrong end of the table all year.

The die was cast inside 25 minutes of gutless, blank, bewildering football as Ilias Chair led a rampant QPR that cut through Leeds like a knife through butter. Too many players were having season-worst performances at the same time.

Simple passes went astray. As it became clear which way this was going, some players started to force it, trying high-risk passes that were then only burying the team deeper in the mire as QPR turned over and countered.

They were rabbits in the headlights on the biggest night of their season. It was nothing like the performances against their closest rivals. Those four clashes with Leicester and Ipswich were tense and pressurised occasions, more so the later Elland Road meetings, but the Whites have a 100 per cent record against the best teams in the league.

They didn’t choke in those games, so why last night?

No half-time changes again

At the midway point of the worst display of the season, changes would have been understandable. Farke did not make any. He kept the same XI on the field and, after the match, said he hoped those players would take their chance to make amends.

Farke argued he did not have the experience on the bench to confidently make changes when the likes of Crysencio Summerville, Georginio Rutter and Wilfried Gnonto have been so good this season. It wasn’t happening though.

Forty-five minutes were enough to see there were too many players out of their flow and the whole thing needed shaking up. It needed a reset for the second half, just something to break the chain of poor on-field decisions, new faces for team-mates to look at.

Jaidon Anthony has never really had a proper chance in this team this season, but he has been good enough to win promotion with Bournemouth, who were planning on using him in the top flight until the 11th hour of the summer transfer window. These occasions are surely why he was brought to the club. This was the perfect example of using your squad.

Mateo Joseph has long been called for by a sizeable proportion of the fan base. Would that 20-year-old have been any worse than Joel Piroe’s first-half display? It just again fed into this narrative Farke can be too passive and lacking ingenuity in his tactical plans when it’s not going well.

A splintering defence

QPR’s chances equated to 0.7 expected goals last night, yet they scored four. Is that on the goalkeeper or the defence or both? Not only did Friday’s drubbing confirm Leicester’s promotion, but it also snatched away United’s claim to being the league’s best defence.

Forty-one concessions in 45 games remains a superb return, but seven shipped in five days points to where the gaps have started to appear in the dam. Illan Meslier had to do better with Lyndon Dykes’s header through his legs, Sam Byram was torn to shreds by Chair, Joe Rodon and Ethan Ampadu were left isolated and desperately putting in last-minute blocks.

Ilia Gruev was startlingly obliging for the first two goals in his worst display for the club. Archie Gray also struggled to provide any meaningful impact or protection from midfield as QPR toyed with them.

Junior Firpo, so often derided, was the only player who came away with an ounce of credit on Friday night. His raids down the left flank were the only attacking outlet showing any degree of consistency at Loftus Road. He was deserving of better attackers in the box for his crosses.

Making sense of the play-offs

Farke cannot admit it publicly, but he has to now be planning for how he gets this team out of their hole for the play-offs. Beating Southampton is the most obvious way of doing that, but anything other than automatic promotion next Saturday is going to feel hollow.

The truest measure of his managerial capability will be taking the Whites into that lottery with some momentum and belief they can be the third team going up to the top flight. They would be the best of the four teams going into the contest, but how do they compete with the feel-good factor at Norwich City, for example?

Given how the players have frozen at Loftus Road, how does Farke hope to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen when the pressure next becomes unbearable?