Leeds might be flying but there's one crucial thing missing in their Premier League promotion charge - and if they don't fix it this week, they'll be coming straight back down, writes IAN HERBERT
Leeds might be flying but there's one crucial thing missing in their Premier League promotion charge - and if they don't fix it this week, they'll be coming straight back down, writes IAN HERBERT
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I watched it rain right into Burnley’s Barnfield Construction Stand where the Leeds fans were standing on Monday night, as if that bone-chilling spot up on the Pennines was determined to do its damnedest. They lingered there, drenched through, to deliver a last ovation to a team who wandered over at the end and who look for all the world like they’re going back up as champions.
![[Youthful talents like Archie Gray (left) and Crysencio Summerville (centre) are long departed]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/28/16/94602295-14334359-image-m-45_1738081661178.jpg)
I watched those Leeds fans heading away into the night, fortified and sustained by Jayden Bogle, the summer signing from Sheffield United, imposing himself down the right, socks around his calves. By the Japanese Ao Tanaka - a steal at £3million from Fortuna Disseldorf, it’s turned out - asserting himself in a challenging midfield battle. Had they lost, Leeds would have seen Burnley draw level with them at the top of the Championship. The point kept them two points clear.
![[While Daniel Farke (centre) is the right manager to lead them back to the top division, he has a boom and bust sequence to break, having been promoted and then relegated several times]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/28/16/94602255-14334359-image-a-43_1738081654287.jpg)
But this was a top-of-the-table game. First v third. An occasion that drew you to Turf Moor to catch a glimpse of what, eight months from now, might very well be two promoted clubs back at the top of the football world, full of belief that they can prevent a three-year sequence of promoted Championship clubs heading straight back down again.
![[David Coote's interview with the Sun shone a light on the challenges being openly gay and officiating in the top flight would pose - given the homophobia, it sounds like hell on earth]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/28/16/94602325-14334359-image-a-46_1738081709831.jpg)
And viewed through that lens, Monday was not such an encouraging sight. Long gone from Leeds is the youthful stardust of Archie Gray and Crysencio Summerville, sold when the shot at immediate promotion back to the Premier League ended in a sixth unsuccessful play-off campaign last summer. There was solidity, nous and teamwork from the Championship’s best team – who have comfortably enough for automatic promotion. But that finesse, vision and physicality required to survive in the Premier League? No. Leeds looked a very long way off that.
![[Last week's column drew attention to the careworn nature of the World Cup Statue near the old Boleyn Park site - and thankfully those wonderful heroes have been restored to former glories]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/28/16/94602343-14334359-image-a-47_1738081737004.jpg)
